# Co-Existence released, uses Anthropic Opus 5.5 to chart 30 months of AI progress

Digest AI · Generative AI & Models · published 2026-10-20T15:57:59Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/co-existence-released-uses-anthropic-opus-5-5-to-chart-30-months-of-ai

## Summary

The author’s new book *Co‑Existence* launched today, looking back at AI development since the early‑2024 release of *Co‑Intelligence*.  Using Anthropic’s Opus 5.5 in Claude Projects, the author let a single “orchestrator” agent spin off additional agents to research, graph, layout, and cite data, turning weeks of work into minutes.  The resulting charts illustrate how the AI landscape has shifted from a single dominant model—GPT‑4—to a rotating lead among twenty models from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.

According to the post, 180 AI models now outperform GPT‑4 at its launch, and 19 of those can run on a modern smartphone.  The METR Long Horizon Benchmark shows the amount of work an AI can accomplish with a single prompt doubled eight times, growing from a four‑minute task in 2024 to 17 hours of human work by April 2026; some studies suggest the capacity may already exceed 17 weeks.  At the same time, the cost of answering a Google Proof Q&A exam fell from 30 cents per answer to four hundredths of a cent.  The author argues that these rapid gains are reshaping how people collaborate with AI, moving from chat‑based “centaur” work to autonomous agents that can generate content such as videos with minimal human direction.

## Key points

- 180 AI models now surpass GPT‑4’s launch performance, 19 can run on a modern smartphone.
- METR benchmark shows work capacity doubled eight times, from a 4‑minute task in 2024 to 17 hours by April 2026.
- Cost of Google Proof Q&A exam dropped from 30 cents per answer to four hundredths of a cent.

## Why it matters

The accelerating model improvements and falling costs enable businesses and creators to automate complex tasks, shifting workflows from manual prompting to autonomous AI agents that can produce content at scale.

## Sources

1. [30 Months on the Exponential (in Charts)](https://oneusefulthing.org/p/30-months-on-the-exponential-in-charts) (One Useful Thing, 2026-10-20)

Part of the developing story: [DeepSeek's Rapid AI Service and Benchmark Race](https://digestai.news/thread/deepseek-launches-search-and-fetch-apis-at-0-75-per-1-000-requests) (3 stories)

## Cite

Digest AI, "Co-Existence released, uses Anthropic Opus 5.5 to chart 30 months of AI progress", 20 October 2026, https://digestai.news/story/co-existence-released-uses-anthropic-opus-5-5-to-chart-30-months-of-ai

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