The State of AI Report 2026
State of AI newsletter
The State of AI Report 2026 surveys 9th annual research and industry developments, arguing that practical AI value depends more on human setup than on model improvements alone. In a controlled coding test, adjusting tools, context, and feedback for GLM-5.1 lifted success from 52.5% to 65.5% on 100 SWE-bench Verified tasks without changing weights. It shifts focus toward agents, new evaluation methods, AI infrastructure and financing, and policy constraints that affect who can access and deploy frontier AI systems.
Why it matters
The report highlights that agents are doing valuable work in software and science, while “Physical AI” is learning to act in the world. It also frames the current landscape as a three-lab race between Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, with each leading in different benchmarks.
