# METR believes AI R&D now drives most of recent capability gains

> Original title: 2. We believe that a majority of this acceleration in capability improvement is likely now driven by AI being used in AI R&D. We aren’t s...

- Source: METR
- Published: 2026-11-05T18:36:41.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/q6lxio510do4agfvnv4rhcj0z
- Original: https://x.com/METR_Evals/status/2118412201015103709

## Summary

METR says it believes most of the recent acceleration in AI capability improvement is now driven by AI being used in AI R&D, but it is not certain and found no consensus among Anthropic staff. It says non-AI factors likely played a large role in late 2025.

## Post

2. We believe that a majority of this acceleration in capability improvement is likely now driven by AI being used in AI R&D. We aren’t sure of this, though, and did not find consensus about this among Anthropic’s staff. Non-AI factors likely played a large role in late 2025.

![](https://badinfluence.news/api/img-proxy?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FHWYcq5qbUAE5sfB.jpg&mode=thumb&exp=1794096000&sig=8d26aa6beb9b275b)