# AItonomy Foundation introduces Science's Last Exam, a benchmark for AI research agents

> Original title: Can agents really do scientific research?

- Source: Santiago
- Published: 2026-11-05T17:26:52.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/vnxsc1bjmhucwqxaglntfvqvn
- Original: https://x.com/svpino/status/2118394630765162662

## Summary

AItonomy Foundation introduces Science's Last Exam, a benchmark that gives agents research goals and real-world tools, then grades them against hidden expert checks. Of eight frontier models tested, the best scored 37.5 out of 100, and all scored 0 on true end-to-end research. The benchmark covers 113 tasks across 9 disciplines and opens on Nov 6.

## Post

Can agents really do scientific research?

This is a new benchmark that focuses on this.

It comes with 50+ tasks across 9 scientific disciplines. There's also a leaderboard to see which agents work best.

Here is how we know an agent is good for scientific research:

• It should be able to choose the right methods
• It should be able to run computations
• It should be able to learn from failures
• It should be able to produce verifiable results

## Quoted post @aitonomyfound

> I’m incredibly proud to share what we’ve been building at the AItonomy Foundation: Science’s Last Exam (SLE). 🧪✨
> 
> Can AI do science? Instead of Q&A, we give agents actual research goals and real-world tools (lab data, software), then grade them against hidden expert checks.
> 
> Deeply grateful to the brilliant minds at 34 institutions (Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc.) who helped craft 113 tasks across 9 disciplines. ❤️
> 
> The results? Science is hard. Of 8 frontier models, the best scored 37.5/100. On true end-to-end research? All scored 0. We have an exciting journey ahead! 🚀
>  (Claude Opus 5.5 & GPT-6 Astra coming soon—just clearing bio safeguards).
> 
> Everything opens Nov 6. 🗓️ 
> 🌐 https://sciences-last-exam.org
> 💻 https://github.com/Gen-Verse/Science-Last-Exam
> 🤗 https://huggingface.co/datasets/Gen-Verse/Science-Last-Exam
> 
> Thread below on how the exam works and where models break. 👇 (1/14)
> #AGI #AIforScience #AIAgents #SciencesLastExam #OpenAI #Anthropic

https://x.com/aitonomyfound/status/2118372265842610618