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Beyond text

Outside text, tests fill up fast and almost nobody checks the numbers independently

Vision, generation, voice, robotics and driving all repeat one arc: first tests saturate, arenas take over, and real-world, independent evaluation stays thin.

spread of the top ten on Arena's vision board
16 Elo
of text-mode success kept by voice agents
30–45%
LIBERO robot scores under small changes
>90% → 0%
deepfake detector AUC on real 2024 fakes
−45 to −50%
maximum GenEval judge error against humans
17.7%
On this page
  1. Key findings
  2. The same arc
  3. Vision
  4. Generation
  5. Deepfakes
  6. Speech and voice
  7. Robotics and driving
  8. Classic ML
  9. Who checks
  10. Sources

Key findings

  • Old vision tests have saturated. DocVQA, ChartQA, OCRBench v1 and MathVista all scored 85–97% by November 2025.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary Harder successors such as MMMU-Pro and ScreenSpot-Pro reached about 85–93% by November 2026 (aggregator).[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary[3][3] BenchLM, CharXiv Secondary[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary
  • The vision arena can no longer rank the frontier. On 19 October 2026, the top ten models on Arena's vision board sat within 16 Elo points, with overlapping intervals.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary
  • Automatic image judges drift away from people. GenEval's judge erred by up to 17.7% against human judgment, so blind human votes now rank generation (Dec 2025).[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary
  • The two video arenas disagree. Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash leads Arena's text-to-video board but ranks tenth on Artificial Analysis (Sep–Nov 2026).[6][6] Arena, text-to-video leaderboard Primary[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard Primary
  • Deepfake detectors fail in the wild. On real 2024 deepfakes, open-source detectors lost 45–50% of their AUC against academic benchmarks (Mar 2025).[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary
  • Speech reasoning is solved, but voice agents are not. The top model scores 99.7% on Big Bench Audio (Nov 2026).[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary In the τ-voice paper, voice agents kept only 30–45% of their text-mode task success (2026).[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary
  • The Open ASR Leaderboard shows how to resist benchmark gaming. It dropped LibriSpeech from its default average on 2 November 2026 and now leans on private data and a "benchmark fitting" check.[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary[50][50] Open ASR Leaderboard, constants.py Primary[51][51] Open ASR Leaderboard, app.py Primary
  • Robot scores collapse under small changes. LIBERO scores above 90% fell to 0–30% when objects, cameras or instructions shifted (Oct 2025).[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary[13][13] LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626 Primary Labs mostly grade themselves on private task suites.
  • Driving evaluation moved to pseudo-simulation. The CARLA Leaderboard closed for good, and NAVSIM v2 is now the main public benchmark (2025–2026).[14][14] CARLA Autonomous Driving Leaderboard Primary[15][15] NAVSIM v2 pseudo-simulation, arXiv 2506.04218 Primary
  • Classic ML has a mature, regulator-written method that stops at generative AI. SR 26-2 replaced SR 11-7 on 17 April 2026 and excludes generative and agentic AI.[18][18] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 attachment Primary[101][101] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 Primary

Every modality follows the same arc, from saturated tests to thin independent checks

AI now sees, draws, speaks, listens, drives and moves robots. Each modality has its own tests, arenas and failure modes, but the story repeats.

First-generation tests saturate within one or two model generations. Vision "Pro" tests, GUI grounding and speech reasoning all neared their ceilings within 12–24 months.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary Human-preference arenas then take over. Soon they also stop separating the frontier, because the top models sit inside the noise.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary

The hard part is the same in every modality. Real conditions, real tasks and an independent evaluator are scarce. Deepfake detectors lose about half their skill on real fakes.[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary Robot policies that ace a simulator fail when the camera moves.[13][13] LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626 Primary Voice agents lose most of their text-mode success once callers speak with noise and accents.[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary

Tests Beyond Text Fill Up in Months, Too

Best reported score on vision, GUI and speech tests, September 2024 to November 2026, with the tests that still resist.

Step 1 of 7: Four dots for DocVQA, ChartQA, OCRBench v1 and MathVista sit between 85 and 97 percent in November 2025.

The first vision tests are full. By November 2025, four model families scored 85–97% on document, chart, OCR and visual-maths tests.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary Labs keep them only as regression checks.
GUI grounding went from 18.9% to 92.7% in 19 months. ScreenSpot-Pro launched in April 2025 on expert software screens.[16][16] ScreenSpot-Pro, arXiv 2504.07981 Primary By November 2026, the best aggregator score was 92.7%.[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary
The harder successors now near their own ceilings. MMMU-Pro removed text-solvable questions and still reached 85.5%. CharXiv reasoning reached 93.5%. Both figures are aggregator numbers.[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary[3][3] BenchLM, CharXiv Secondary
Speech reasoning is solved. StepAudio 3 Realtime scores 99.7% on Big Bench Audio and 98.9% on turn-taking dynamics.[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary
Voice agents climb fast, but the harness matters. The τ-voice paper found the best voice agent at 51% with clean audio.[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary By November 2026, Artificial Analysis reported 79.9% on its own harness.[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary The two numbers may not compare.
A few tests still resist. Hallucination, hard OCR, compositional image generation, hard driving scenes and household robotics all stay well below the ceiling.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary[37][37] alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 Single source[74][74] Robot Learning Collective on the BEHAVIOR Challenge Secondary[98][98] IDOL, arXiv 2605.31476 Primary
Other tests were retired or discredited. Public answers, closed servers, gaming and fragility ended their use as headline numbers.[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary[14][14] CARLA Autonomous Driving Leaderboard Primary[22][22] MMMU benchmark site Primary[95][95] Ego status in open-loop driving, arXiv 2312.03031 Primary

Figure 1. Lines join dated best scores; single dots are one dated reading. OCRBench v1 is shown out of 100 (920 of 1,000). The two τ-voice points come from different harnesses: the paper's own and Artificial Analysis's. Still-hard tests use each test's own metric, so their heights compare only loosely. Aggregator values are lab-reported numbers compiled by BenchLM.

Source: Qwen3-VL technical report (Nov 2025);[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary BenchLM (Nov 2026, aggregator);[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary[3][3] BenchLM, CharXiv Secondary[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary ScreenSpot-Pro paper;[16][16] ScreenSpot-Pro, arXiv 2504.07981 Primary Artificial Analysis (Nov 2026);[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary τ-voice paper;[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary GenEval 2 (single source);[37][37] alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 Single source ChartQAPro;[20][20] ChartQAPro, arXiv 2504.05506 Primary BEHAVIOR Challenge (snippet);[74][74] Robot Learning Collective on the BEHAVIOR Challenge Secondary NAVSIM snippets.[98][98] IDOL, arXiv 2605.31476 Primary[99][99] RAP, arXiv 2510.04333 Primary

Each modality has one number that tells its story

ModalityKey numberSaturated, frontier and other factsIndependent check
Vision-language16 Elo spread of Arena's vision top ten (19 Oct 2026)Saturated: DocVQA, ChartQA, OCRBench v1, MathVista (85–97%); Frontier: HallusionBench at 60–67; Same model: 80.5% (Google) vs 83.9% (BenchLM) on MMMU-ProAggregators only
Image and video generation17.7% maximum GenEval error against human judgesSaturated: GenEval; VBench v1; Frontier: GenEval 2 (35.8%), VBench-2.0; Deepfake detectors lose 45–50% AUC on real fakesTwo arenas, split verdicts
Speech and voice agents30–45% of text-mode success kept by voice agents (τ-voice)Saturated: Big Bench Audio at 99.7%; LibriSpeech dropped from the Open ASR default; Testing vendors serve builders, not buyersBuilder-side QA only
Robotics and driving>90% → 0–30% LIBERO success once objects, views or instructions shiftFrontier: BEHAVIOR-1K winner at 12.4%; CARLA Leaderboard closed; NAVSIM v2 leads; RoboArena: 612 comparisons across 7 universitiesAlmost no third party
GUI grounding92.7% best ScreenSpot-Pro score, up from 18.9% at launchTests static screens only; No state tracking or recovery; Reliability now limits GUI agentsAggregators only
Classic ML (credit, fraud)SR 26-2 replaced SR 11-7 on 17 Apr 2026; excludes GenAI and agentsBack-testing against real outcomes, no benchmark race; Agreed fairness metrics (Fairlearn, AIF360); Monitoring vendors are moving to agentsModel-risk validation
Table 1. What is solved, what still separates models, and who checks the numbers, November 2026. Read across the tags: only classic ML has an established independent check. Every key number shows a gap between lab conditions and real use. Source: Arena;[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary GenEval 2;[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary Deepfake-Eval-2024;[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary τ-voice;[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary LIBERO-PRO and LIBERO-Plus;[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary[13][13] LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626 Primary BenchLM (aggregator);[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary Federal Reserve SR 26-2.[101][101] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 Primary

Vision tests filled up, and the vision arena can no longer rank the frontier

Vision-language models answer questions about images, documents, charts and video. Their evaluation has split into saturated regression checks, harder successors and preference arenas.

Saturated perception tests stay in technical reports only as regression checks. Most late-2025 scores come from one primary table, the Qwen3-VL report. It compares Qwen3-VL with Gemini 2.5 Pro, GPT-5 and Claude Opus 4.1.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary DocVQA reached 96.5–97.1, ChartQA 90.3 and MathVista-mini 85.8. Even the authors of ChartQA's successor call ChartQA saturated.[20][20] ChartQAPro, arXiv 2504.05506 Primary

Harder successors replaced them, and most now near their own ceiling. MMMU-Pro removed questions that text-only models could answer. It raised the options to ten and embedded some questions in the image. At launch, models scored 16.8–26.9 points lower than on MMMU.[23][23] MMMU-Pro, arXiv 2409.02813 Primary Within two years, aggregator scores passed 85%.[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary Models still stay "close to random guesses" on rare image types, such as music sheets and chemical structures.[22][22] MMMU benchmark site Primary

Hallucination remains the clearest unsolved test. Frontier models scored only 60.4–66.7 on HallusionBench in late 2025, while document tests passed 95.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary[26][26] HallusionBench, arXiv 2310.14566 Primary Video understanding also lacks a current, dated leaderboard. Video-MME tops out at 85.1 and VideoMMMU at 84.6, both from November 2025 tables.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary[28][28] Video-MME, arXiv 2405.21075 Primary

MMMU-Pro scores move with the source that reports them

Scores reported for MMMU-Pro by labs, aggregators and news, 2026. The spread comes from sources and variants, not from the models.

  • Same model, two sources (2)
  • Aggregator top score (1)
  • Tool-using variant (1)
  • Unverified claim (1)
75%80%85%90%95%100%MMMU-Pro score (%)Google's own pageGemini 3.1 ProAggregatorsGemini 3.1 ProGPT-6.1 TerraGPT-5.4 with toolsNews claim, July 2026GPT-5.4 Pro

What to notice

  • The two indigo dots show the same model 3.4 points apart.
  • GPT-5.4 Pro does not appear in BenchLM's November table, so we treat the 94% claim as unverified.
  • Tool and Python variants mix into rankings and inflate scores.
Data table
ItemRowMMMU-Pro score (%)Category
Gemini 3.1 ProGoogle's own page80.5Same model, two sources
Gemini 3.1 ProAggregators83.9Same model, two sources
GPT-6.1 TerraAggregators85.5Aggregator top score
GPT-5.4 with toolsAggregators89.3Tool-using variant
GPT-5.4 ProNews claim, July 202694Unverified claim
Figure 2. A fair comparison needs every model re-run in one fixed harness. No independent team did this for frontier vision models in 2026. Source: Google DeepMind (vendor);[24][24] Google DeepMind, Gemini Pro page Vendor BenchLM (aggregator, Nov 2026);[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary Another Wrapper (aggregator);[25][25] Another Wrapper, MMMU-Pro with tools Secondary af.net (unverified).[33][33] af.net on GPT-5.4 Pro Single source

Preference arenas rank models by votes, but the frontier sits inside the noise. Arena, formerly LMArena, runs the largest vision arena. On 19 October 2026 its board held 1,493,948 votes across 166 models.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary The whole top ten fits inside 16 points, with overlapping intervals. A gap that small does not support any ranking claim.

The top ten vision models are statistically tied

Arena vision leaderboard, 19 October 2026: Elo score with 95% interval where published.

1,2851,2901,2951,3001,3051,3101,3151,320Arena vision EloClaude Fable 5 (High)1st1,309Qwen3.8-Max2nd1,300Claude Opus 4.6 (High)joint 3rd1,299Claude Opus 4.7joint 3rd1,299Claude Opus 5.5 (High)10th1,293First and tenth place are 16 points apart.
  • Leader
  • Tenth place

What to notice

  • The leader's interval (±7) overlaps the second model's interval.
Data table
ItemValueLowHighCategory
Claude Fable 5 (High) (1st)1,30913021316Leader
Qwen3.8-Max (2nd)1,30012931307
Claude Opus 4.6 (High) (joint 3rd)1,299
Claude Opus 4.7 (joint 3rd)1,299
Claude Opus 5.5 (High) (10th)1,293Tenth place
Figure 3. Places 5–9 are omitted; their scores sit between 1293 and 1299. The source gives ±7 intervals for the first two models only. Source: Arena vision leaderboard, read 19 Oct 2026.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary

Other arenas have gone quiet. WildVision-Arena collected real-user preferences in 2024, and its GPT-4 judge reached a Spearman correlation of 0.94 with arena Elo.[34][34] WildVision, arXiv 2406.11069 Primary Its Space has not changed since 22 December 2024.[35][35] Hugging Face API, WildVision Space Primary The OpenCompass Open VLM Leaderboard last changed on 11 March 2026.[36][36] Hugging Face API, Open VLM Leaderboard Primary

GUI grounding has reached its ceiling

Perception no longer limits GUI agents. ScreenSpot-Pro tests grounding on 1,581 instructions across 23 professional applications and three operating systems.[16][16] ScreenSpot-Pro, arXiv 2504.07981 Primary The best model scored 18.9% at launch in April 2025. By November 2026, BenchLM listed GPT-6 Astra at 92.7%, Claude Opus 4.8 at 87.9% and GPT-5.4 at 85.4%.[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary The test covers static screens only, with no state tracking or recovery. Reliability, harness effects and broken task checkers now limit GUI agents instead.

  • BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    DocVQAQuestions on scanned documents96.5–97.1, Qwen3-VL-235B, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimarySaturatedUseful only as a regression check
    ChartQAQuestions on charts90.3, Qwen3-VL, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimarySaturatedIts successor's authors call it saturated[20][20] ChartQAPro, arXiv 2504.05506 Primary
    ChartQAPro (Apr 2025)1,948 questions on 1,341 harder charts[20][20] ChartQAPro, arXiv 2504.05506 Primary55.81%, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, at launchFrontierNo 2026 top score found
    OCRBench v1Text in images, out of 1,000920, Qwen3-VL-Instruct, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimarySaturatedToo easy for frontier models
    OCRBench v2 (Dec 2024)10,000 QA pairs in 31 scenarios, plus a private set of 1,500 images[21][21] OCRBench v2, arXiv 2501.00321 Primary66.8–67.1 (English), Qwen3-VL, Nov 2025FrontierNo 2026 board found
    MathVista-miniVisual maths85.8, Qwen3-VL-thinking, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimarySaturatedNear the ceiling for all four families
    MMMUCollege-level multimodal questions80.6–84.2 across four families, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimaryNear ceilingTest answers became public in Feb 2026[22][22] MMMU benchmark site Primary
    MMMU-Pro (Sep 2024)MMMU without text-solvable items, ten options, a vision-only setting[23][23] MMMU-Pro, arXiv 2409.02813 Primary85.5%, GPT-6.1 Terra, Nov 2026 (aggregator)[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro SecondaryNear ceilingSources disagree by several points; tool variants mix in[24][24] Google DeepMind, Gemini Pro page Vendor[25][25] Another Wrapper, MMMU-Pro with tools Secondary
    CharXiv descriptiveDescribing scientific charts87.8–94.4, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimarySaturatedSuperseded by the reasoning split
    CharXiv reasoningReasoning over scientific charts93.5%, Qwen3.8 Max and Claude Mythos 5, Nov 2026 (aggregator)[3][3] BenchLM, CharXiv SecondaryNear ceilingOnly aggregator numbers for 2026
    HallusionBench (2023)Visual illusions and hallucination; 346 images, 1,129 questions[26][26] HallusionBench, arXiv 2310.14566 Primary60.4–66.7 across four families, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimaryFrontierNo 2026 primary score found
    POPE (2023)Yes/no polling on object hallucination[27][27] POPE, arXiv 2305.10355 PrimaryNo 2026 primary score foundProbably saturated (unverified)The yes/no format makes it easy
    ERQAEmbodied reasoning from images28.0–65.7, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimaryFrontierWide spread between model families
    Table 2. Image and document benchmarks with their best scores. November 2025 scores come from the Qwen3-VL report; 2026 scores come from aggregators.
  • BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    Video-MMEVideo QA over six domains, 11 seconds to 1 hour[28][28] Video-MME, arXiv 2405.21075 Primary85.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro without subtitles, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimaryNear ceilingNo dated 2026 board found
    MVBench20 temporal tasks that one frame cannot solve[29][29] MVBench, arXiv 2311.17005 Primary76.5, Qwen3-VL, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimaryActiveConverted annotations limit task variety
    VideoMMMUExpert-level questions on videos84.6, GPT-5, Nov 2025[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 PrimaryNear ceilingNo dated 2026 board found
    LongVideoBench6,678 questions on 3,763 videos up to an hour long[30][30] LongVideoBench, arXiv 2407.15754 PrimaryNo 2026 board foundUnknownCurrent top scores unconfirmed
    EgoSchema5,000+ questions on 3-minute egocentric clips[31][31] EgoSchema, arXiv 2308.09126 PrimaryNo 2026 board foundUnknownCurrent top scores unconfirmed
    Table 3. No dated 2026 leaderboard exists for these video tests, so the top scores come from November 2025 tables.
    • MVBench builds its questions from existing annotations, which avoids bias from an LLM grader.[29][29] MVBench, arXiv 2311.17005 Primary
    • EgoSchema introduced "temporal certificate" length: how much of a clip a person must watch to answer.[31][31] EgoSchema, arXiv 2308.09126 Primary
    • Coverage of Qwen3-VL reports 100% needle retrieval in 30-minute videos (secondary).[32][32] The Decoder on Qwen3-VL Secondary Needle retrieval tests search, not temporal reasoning.
  • Arena details

    • Arena vision board, 19 Oct 2026: Claude Fable 5 (High) 1309±7; Qwen3.8-Max 1300±7; Claude Opus 4.6 (High) and Claude Opus 4.7 both 1299; tenth place Claude Opus 5.5 (High) 1293.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary
    • WildVision's 500-item WV-Bench used a GPT-4 judge. It correlated with arena Elo at Spearman 0.94; MMMU and MMVet correlated less.[34][34] WildVision, arXiv 2406.11069 Primary

    GUI grounding table

    BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    ScreenSpot-ProGrounding on 1,581 high-resolution instructions92.7%, GPT-6 Astra, Nov 2026 (aggregator)[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro SecondaryNear ceiling"Tests static-screen grounding" only
    OSWorld-VerifiedReal desktop tasks85%, Claude Fable 5, five-run average (aggregator)[100][100] BenchLM, Claude Fable 5 versus Opus 4.5 SecondaryNear ceilingWe did not retrieve the system card
    Table 4. GUI grounding and computer-use scores. Both 2026 figures are aggregator numbers.
    • Qwen3-VL-235B reached 61.8% on ScreenSpot-Pro by November 2025.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary H Company's Holo2-235B scored 70.6%.[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary
    • No independent team re-ran frontier models on the vision suite in a fixed harness during 2026.
    • Very long video still lacks a current, dated leaderboard.
    • Public test answers end contamination control, so future MMMU scores deserve less weight than private-set scores.[22][22] MMMU benchmark site Primary
    • Lab pages, aggregators and leaderboards report different numbers for the same model.

Blind human votes now rank generation, because automatic judges drift

Image, video and music generation have no single right answer. Evaluators therefore rely on human preference, and automatic metrics serve as cheap proxies.

A frozen judge falls behind the models it grades. GenEval checks objects, counts, colours and positions in text-to-image output. Its Meta FAIR authors show that GenEval "has drifted far from human judgment over time".[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary A large human study confirmed the saturation. The same drift affects LLM judges in text. Any judge-model approach needs regular re-calibration against fresh human labels.

17.7%

maximum error of GenEval's automatic judge against human judgment, December 2025. The judge grades models that have moved past it.

Source: GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853.[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary

A harder successor resets the scale. GenEval 2 adds more primitives and deeper composition, scored per primitive with Soft-TIFA.[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary The best model reached only 35.8% at prompt level in December 2025 (single source).[37][37] alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 Single source Learned scorers such as HPSv2 and HPSv3 also serve as proxies. HPSv2 fine-tunes CLIP on 798,090 human choices, and HPSv3 uses a VLM and 1.17 million comparisons.[39][39] HPSv2, arXiv 2306.09341 Primary[40][40] HPSv3, arXiv 2508.03789 Primary Any fixed scorer falls behind newer models.

A harder test drops the best image score from 97% to 36%

Best text-to-image result on GenEval (human-judged) and on its successor GenEval 2 (prompt-level), December 2025.

Each square is 1 of 100 (1%).

What to notice

  • The two tests use different scoring, so read the gap as a reset of the scale, not as a model regression.
Data table
PanelValue
GenEval97%
GenEval 236%
Figure 4. Each grid has 100 squares; filled squares show the best score, rounded to whole percent (96.7% and 35.8%). Both figures come from one secondary overview of the GenEval 2 paper. GenEval 2 has little outside use so far. Source: alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 (single source);[37][37] alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 Single source GenEval 2 paper.[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary

Two arenas dominate, and they disagree on video. Arena collects votes from an open crowd. Artificial Analysis (AA) pays vetted private evaluators. Both fit votes with a Bradley-Terry model on an Elo scale.[48][48] Artificial Analysis, image methodology Primary On images they agree: GPT-Image-2.5 Sunburst leads both boards.[45][45] Arena, text-to-image leaderboard Primary[46][46] Artificial Analysis, text-to-image leaderboard Primary On video they split. Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash ranks first on Arena but tenth on AA.[6][6] Arena, text-to-video leaderboard Primary[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard Primary Neither source explains the gap. Likely causes include the voter pool, the prompt set and the inclusion of audio.

The two arenas agree on images and split on video

Arena (open crowd)Artificial Analysis (paid, vetted evaluators)Note
Text-to-image leaderGPT-Image-2.5 Sunburst, 1427±5GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max), 1225Same leader
Text-to-video leaderGemini Omni 1.1 Flash, 1516±15Wan 3.0, 1172Different leaders
Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash on video1st10th (1129)Neither source explains the gap
Audio in video votesNot statedYes (v2.1, with audio)
Board size718,577 video votes, 48 models (21 Sep 2026)Not published
Score anchorNone statedKling 3.0 1080p (Pro) = 1000 for video; FLUX.2 [dev] = 1000 for images
Prompt curationPrompts from votersHuman-curated, 10 use cases, refreshed monthly
Interval caveatNot statedAdmits intervals 'may be slightly narrow'
Table 5. How Arena and Artificial Analysis run their generation boards, read September to November 2026. Elo scales differ between the two boards, so compare ranks, not raw scores. One arena rank makes a weak signal on its own. A trustworthy board should state its voter pool, prompt taxonomy and audio policy. Source: Arena text-to-image and text-to-video boards;[45][45] Arena, text-to-image leaderboard Primary[6][6] Arena, text-to-video leaderboard Primary Artificial Analysis boards and methodology.[46][46] Artificial Analysis, text-to-image leaderboard Primary[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard Primary[48][48] Artificial Analysis, image methodology Primary

Audio metrics lack validation against human perception. Fréchet Audio Distance (FAD) remains the default metric for music quality. Few studies test its link to perceived quality. Its critics name three biases: sample size, embedding choice and reference set.[44][44] Adapting FAD for music, arXiv 2311.01616 Primary Music Arena, live since July 2025, runs pairwise votes for text-to-music systems.[47][47] Music Arena, arXiv 2507.20900 Primary

  • BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    GenEvalObjects, counts, colours and positions in text-to-image96.7% human-judged, Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (single source)[37][37] alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 Single sourceSaturated[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 PrimaryIts automatic judge errs by up to 17.7%
    GenEval 2 (Dec 2025)More primitives and deeper composition, scored per primitive with Soft-TIFA[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary35.8% prompt-level, best model, Dec 2025 (single source)[37][37] alphaXiv overview of GenEval 2 Single sourceFrontierNew, with little outside use so far
    T2I-CompBench++8,000 prompts on binding, relations, counts and composition[38][38] T2I-CompBench++, arXiv 2307.06350 PrimaryNo 2026 top score foundActiveRelies on detectors and MLLM judges
    HPSv2 and HPSv3Learned scorers trained on human preferences[39][39] HPSv2, arXiv 2306.09341 Primary[40][40] HPSv3, arXiv 2508.03789 PrimaryNot a leaderboardProxyA fixed scorer falls behind newer models
    VBench (v1)Surface faithfulness of video: per-frame quality, temporal consistency, basic prompt adherence[41][41] VBench-2.0, arXiv 2503.21755 PrimaryVendors self-report ranks[42][42] CreativePro on ToMoviee 2.0 (press release) VendorSaturated (our judgement)Tests only surface quality
    VBench-2.0 (Mar 2025)Intrinsic faithfulness: physics, commonsense, control, creativity and human fidelity in 18 dimensions[41][41] VBench-2.0, arXiv 2503.21755 PrimaryVendors self-report ranks[42][42] CreativePro on ToMoviee 2.0 (press release) VendorFrontier; Space updated 1 Apr 2026[43][43] Hugging Face API, VBench Leaderboard Space PrimaryRanks serve as marketing
    Fréchet Audio DistanceDistance between embeddings of generated and reference audioNot a leaderboardDefault music metricSample size, embedding and reference set all bias it[44][44] Adapting FAD for music, arXiv 2311.01616 Primary
    Table 6. Automatic metrics and learned scorers for image, video and music generation, read November 2026.
    • Wondershare claims that ToMoviee 2.0 ranked third on VBench 2.0. The claim comes from a press release.[42][42] CreativePro on ToMoviee 2.0 (press release) Vendor
  • Generation arenas, full table

    ArenaBoard date and sizeLeader (score, date)Next placesNotes
    Arena text-to-image2 Nov 2026; 6,961,993 votes; 84 modelsGPT-Image-2.5 Sunburst, 1427±5[45][45] Arena, text-to-image leaderboard PrimaryOpenAI holds the top five; MAI-Image-2.6 1331; Gemini Nano Banana 2.1 1325Open crowd
    AA text-to-image (v2.1)Read 5 Nov 2026GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max), 1225, Sep 2026[46][46] Artificial Analysis, text-to-image leaderboard PrimaryGPT Image 2.5 Flare 1208; GPT Image 2 (high) 1188; Nano Banana 2.1 1175Anchor FLUX.2 [dev] = 1000; $10–211 per 1,000 images
    Arena text-to-video21 Sep 2026; 718,577 votes; 48 modelsGemini Omni 1.1 Flash, 1516±15[6][6] Arena, text-to-video leaderboard Primarygemini-omni-flash 1513; FLUX 3 Video 1493 (preliminary); Grok Imagine Video 1.5 1492 (preliminary)Open crowd
    AA text-to-video (v2.1, with audio)Read 5 Nov 2026Wan 3.0, 1172, Aug 2026[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard PrimaryUtopai X 1169; MiniMax H3 (768p) 1160; FLUX 3 Max 1156Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 tenth at 1129; anchor Kling 3.0 1080p (Pro) = 1000
    Music ArenaLive since Jul 2025No ranking readNot readRolling data releases[47][47] Music Arena, arXiv 2507.20900 Primary
    Table 7. Board sizes and leaders as read in September to November 2026. Elo scales differ between the two providers, so compare ranks only.

    How Artificial Analysis runs its arena

    • It randomises left and right positions and requires a minimum engagement time per vote.[48][48] Artificial Analysis, image methodology Primary
    • Humans curate prompts across 10 use cases and capabilities such as text rendering, layout and anatomy.
    • It refreshes prompts monthly and retires prompts that do not separate models.
    • It admits its intervals "may be slightly narrow", because it treats votes from one evaluator or one prompt as independent.
  • Audio and music

    • FAD critics propose extrapolation to infinite sample size, plus validated embeddings and references.[44][44] Adapting FAD for music, arXiv 2311.01616 Primary
    • Music Arena routes prompts with an LLM, records listening data and collects free-text feedback.[47][47] Music Arena, arXiv 2507.20900 Primary

    What stays open in generation

    • Automated judges drift and need scheduled re-calibration against humans.
    • Arenas disagree, and neither explains why.
    • Audio metrics lack validation against human perception.
    • We found no 2026 primary top scores for ImageReward, PickScore, GenEval or T2I-CompBench.

Deepfake detectors lose about half their skill on real fakes

Detection benchmarks built in the lab overstate how well detectors work on fakes found online.

Deepfake-Eval-2024 gives the clearest picture of real-world detection. Its authors collected in-the-wild deepfakes from 2024. The set holds 45 hours of video, 56.5 hours of audio and 1,975 images. The items come from 88 websites in 52 languages.[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary AUC, the area under the curve, measures how well a detector separates real from fake. Open-source state-of-the-art detectors lost 45–50% of their AUC against academic benchmarks.

Open-source deepfake detectors lose about half their AUC in the wild

Share of academic-benchmark AUC that open-source state-of-the-art detectors lost on real deepfakes collected online in 2024.

Drag each bar: what share of their AUC did open-source detectors lose on real 2024 deepfakes?

020406080100%Drag the bars to your guess20%Video 45 hours20%Audio 56.5 hours20%Images 1,975 images

Drag a bar, or tab to it and use the arrow keys.

Data table: shown after you check your guess

Figure 5. Deepfake-Eval-2024 is an academic snapshot from early 2025, not a maintained leaderboard. Source: Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857.[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary

Commercial and fine-tuned detectors did better, but not well enough. They "do not yet reach the accuracy of deepfake forensic analysts".[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary Transparency rules, such as Article 50 of the EU AI Act, will need in-the-wild test sets. We found no standing, independent leaderboard for deepfake detection.

  • ModalityAUC lost versus academic benchmarksNote
    Video50%Open-source state-of-the-art detectors[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary
    Audio48%Open-source state-of-the-art detectors[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary
    Images45%Open-source state-of-the-art detectors[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary
    Table 8. Share of AUC lost on in-the-wild 2024 deepfakes compared with academic benchmarks.
    • Deepfake-Eval-2024 is an academic snapshot, not a maintained board.
    • This research pass did not search for 2026 tests of watermark robustness, such as SynthID or C2PA.
    • It did not cover voice-clone detection, such as ASVspoof 5.

Speech reasoning is solved, but voice agents lose most of their text-mode success

Speech recognition, speech synthesis and voice agents each have their own boards. The gap between skill on a test and conduct on a call is widest for agents.

Single-turn speech tests have saturated. StepAudio 3 Realtime scores 99.7% on Big Bench Audio, a set of 1,000 spoken reasoning questions.[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary[57][57] Big Bench Audio dataset card Primary It also scores 98.9% on turn-taking dynamics such as pauses, backchannels and interruptions.[58][58] Full-Duplex-Bench, arXiv 2503.04721 Primary Big Bench Audio uses synthetic speech in 23 voices, in English only. AA's Speech-to-Speech Index puts Phonic 1 (High) at 87.1, just ahead of Grok Voice 3.0 at 86.9.[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary

30–45%

of their text-mode task success is all that voice agents kept on the same customer-service tasks in the τ-voice study (ICML 2026).

Source: τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686.[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary

The τ-voice benchmark shows the gap between skill and conduct most clearly. Its authors extend τ²-bench to full-duplex voice calls in retail, airline and telecom.[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary[60][60] ICML 2026 poster for τ-voice Primary Each of 278 tasks checks the final database state. In text mode, GPT-5 with reasoning reaches 85% pass@1. Voice agents reach 31–51% with clean audio and 26–38% with realistic noise and accents. The agent's own behaviour causes 79–90% of the failures.

The same tasks drop from 85% in text to as low as 26% in voice

τ-voice task success (pass@1): GPT-5 with reasoning in text mode, against the best and worst voice agents in two audio conditions.

Text modeVoice mode020406080100%85%51% Clean audio, best voice agent38% Noise and accents, best voiceagent31% Clean audio, worst voice agent26% Noise and accents, worst voiceagentRealistic callers costvoice agents 47–59 pointsagainst text mode.

What to notice

  • The agent's own behaviour, not speech recognition, causes 79–90% of failures.
  • Artificial Analysis reported 79.9% for Phonic 1 (High) in November 2026, on a harness that may differ from the paper's.
Data table
LineText modeVoice modeChange
Clean audio, best voice agent85%51%−34
Clean audio, worst voice agent85%31%−54
Noise and accents, best voice agent85%38%−47
Noise and accents, worst voice agent85%26%−59
Figure 6. The text-mode reference is one model (GPT-5 with reasoning). The paper summarises the drop as voice agents keeping 30–45% of text capability. Source: τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686;[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary Artificial Analysis speech-to-speech (Nov 2026).[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary

Voice-testing vendors sell quality assurance to builders, not ratings to buyers. Coval, Hamming, Cekura, Bluejay and Cyara combine simulated callers, LLM judges, latency metrics and production monitoring.[63][63] Coval website Vendor[65][65] Hamming website Vendor[54][54] Cekura website Vendor[66][66] Bluejay website Vendor[67][67] Cyara website Vendor Hamming claims 95%+ agreement with human evaluators. Nobody has audited such claims. Cyara's "EU AI Act conformity check" comes closest to a compliance product.

The Open ASR Leaderboard fights benchmark gaming

The Open ASR Leaderboard is the reference board for speech recognition. Its paper (v4, 30 March 2026) benchmarks 86 open and closed systems on 12 datasets.[49][49] Open ASR Leaderboard paper, arXiv 2510.06961 Primary It reports word error rate (WER) for accuracy and inverse real-time factor for speed. During 2026, its maintainers rebuilt the default average around cleaned and private data.[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary

Private data and a fitting check now resist gaming. Appen, DataoceanAI and Voice Arena supply private sets, aggregated so that no provider or split leaks.[50][50] Open ASR Leaderboard, constants.py Primary The private tab exists to "address risks of overfitting to public datasets". A "benchmark fitting" tab compares the noisy VoxPopuli split with a cleaned version.[51][51] Open ASR Leaderboard, app.py Primary A model that scores better on the noisy references has learned their spelling quirks. The maintainers call this the "benchmaxing phenomenon".

In six months the speech leaderboard rebuilt its default score

Method changes logged by the Hugging Face Open ASR Leaderboard, May to November 2026.

May ’26JunJulAugSepOctNovNowTest dataIndian-accentEnglish and Hindisets From Voice Arena Cleaned AMI,Gigaspeech,VoxPopuli added Tedlium removed LibriSpeech droppedfrom default average Method and checksOtterAI listed withverified private WER 'Benchmark fitting'tab Compares noisy andcleaned VoxPopuli to H200 GPUs; Englishnormaliser updated

What to notice

  • The default average now rests on cleaned conversational and business sets plus two private aggregates.
  • Any public rater could copy the recipe: private held-out data, cleaned references, a fitting check and verified claims.
Data table
DateLaneEventKindNote
2026-05-20Test dataTedlium removedother
2026-06-24Method and checksH200 GPUs; English normaliser updatedrelease
2026-07-07Test dataCleaned AMI, Gigaspeech, VoxPopuli addedrelease
2026-08-21Method and checks'Benchmark fitting' tablaunchCompares noisy and cleaned VoxPopuli to expose learned spelling quirks
2026-08-28Test dataIndian-accent English and Hindi setsreleaseFrom Voice Arena
2026-10-15Method and checksOtterAI listed with verified private WERother
2026-11-02Test dataLibriSpeech dropped from default averageshutdown
Figure 7. Dates come from the version log in the leaderboard's source code. Source: Open ASR Leaderboard init.py, constants.py and app.py.[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary[50][50] Open ASR Leaderboard, constants.py Primary[51][51] Open ASR Leaderboard, app.py Primary

Top WERs rest on secondary sources, because the results file needs a login. NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe averages 5.33% and ranks ninth, behind eight closed APIs.[52][52] Apidog, open-source speech-to-text models Secondary Qwen3-ASR-1.7B averages 5.40%.[52][52] Apidog, open-source speech-to-text models Secondary Text-to-speech is ranked by preference: AA's Speech Arena names ElevenLabs Eleven v4 top at Elo 1334.[55][55] Artificial Analysis, text-to-speech Primary We found no 2026 standard for mean opinion score (MOS) tests.

  • Speech recognition: reported top systems

    SystemAverage WERSource and dateNote
    NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe 30B-A4B5.33%Added 28 Oct 2026 (secondary)[52][52] Apidog, open-source speech-to-text models SecondaryNinth overall; eight closed APIs rank above it
    Qwen3-ASR-1.7B5.40%Nov 2026 (secondary)[52][52] Apidog, open-source speech-to-text models SecondaryOpen model
    Cohere Transcribe5.42%Mar 2026, first at launch (secondary)[53][53] NYU Shanghai RITS on Cohere Transcribe SecondaryOpen model
    Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe on Cekura's own set2.28%Vendor[54][54] Cekura website VendorNot comparable with the leaderboard
    Table 9. Top word error rates rest on secondary sources, because the leaderboard's results file needs a login.
    • Conformer encoders with transformer decoders give the best WER; CTC and TDT decoders give the best speed.[49][49] Open ASR Leaderboard paper, arXiv 2510.06961 Primary
    • The board covers English short-form, English long-form and multilingual tracks.[49][49] Open ASR Leaderboard paper, arXiv 2510.06961 Primary

    Speech synthesis

    • AA's Speech Arena ranks TTS models by pairwise preference; ElevenLabs Eleven v4 leads at 1334.[55][55] Artificial Analysis, text-to-speech Primary
    • TTS Arena V2 on Hugging Face is active; its Space changed on 31 Oct 2026. We could not read its rankings.[56][56] Hugging Face API, TTS Arena V2 Primary
    • We found no study that compares MOS with arena results.
  • BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    Big Bench Audio1,000 spoken BBH reasoning questions in four categories[57][57] Big Bench Audio dataset card Primary99.7%, StepAudio 3 Realtime, Nov 2026[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech PrimarySaturatedSynthetic TTS audio in 23 voices, English only
    Conversational Dynamics (Full-Duplex-Bench subset)Pauses, backchannels, turn-taking and interruptions[58][58] Full-Duplex-Bench, arXiv 2503.04721 Primary98.9%, StepAudio 3 Realtime, Nov 2026[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech PrimaryNear ceilingAutomatic metrics only
    Full-Duplex-Bench-v2 (Oct 2025)Streaming examiner over daily, correction, entity-tracking and safety tasks[59][59] Full-Duplex-Bench-v2, arXiv 2510.07838 PrimaryNo 2026 board foundFrontierSystems "get confused when people talk at the same time"
    τ-voice (ICML 2026)278 grounded tasks in retail, airline and telecom, with noisy, accented simulated callers[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary[60][60] ICML 2026 poster for τ-voice Primary79.9%, Phonic 1 (High), Nov 2026, AA harness[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech PrimaryFrontierAA's harness may differ from the paper's
    VoiceBench (Oct 2024)Spoken instructions across speakers, environments and content[61][61] VoiceBench, arXiv 2410.17196 PrimaryLeaderboard news stops in Dec 2024[62][62] VoiceBench on GitHub PrimaryDormant boardA gpt-4o-mini judge grades open-ended items
    Time to first audioLatency0.04 s, Raon SpeechChat, Nov 2026[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech PrimaryMetricSays nothing about quality
    Table 10. Single-turn speech tests have saturated; multi-turn voice agents remain the frontier.
    • AA's preference arena for speech-to-speech puts Gemini 3.1 Flash Live Minimal on top at 1089.[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary
  • VendorMethodMetricsClaims
    CovalSimulate, observe and review; human QA on high-stakes calls feeds the evals[63][63] Coval website VendorTiming, turn-taking, interruptions, audio issues, tool calls, caller emotion3.1M metrics run weekly; customers include Chime, Perplexity and ServiceNow; $28M Series A[64][64] The Next Web on Coval's Series A Secondary
    HammingSimulated callers with accents, noise, DTMF and IVR trees; red-teaming; production monitoring[65][65] Hamming website Vendor50+ built-in metrics; OpenTelemetry export95%+ agreement with human evaluators; 50K+ concurrent calls; 65+ languages
    Cekura (YC)Simulation, drift monitoring, cross-platform benchmarks, red-teaming, deploy gates[54][54] Cekura website Vendorpass^3, P5–P95 turn latency, interruption score, hallucination rate, compliance checksRetell 96.6% pass^3; ElevenLabs 1.73 s median turn latency
    Bluejay (YC, 2025)Simulated voice and chat, call replay, A/B tests, load tests[66][66] Bluejay website VendorTone, accuracy, conversion; public MISTT STT benchmarkGoogle case study with 648 hours saved per month
    CyaraCarrier-to-agent journey tests, load tests, outside-in monitoring[67][67] Cyara website VendorPolicy scores with turn-level evidence"EU AI Act conformity check"; Vodafone, Blue Shield of California, TD Bank
    Table 11. Every figure in this table is a vendor claim. Nobody has audited them.
    • Noise, accents and overlapping speech still break voice agents.
    • Public ASR data invites benchmark fitting; only private held-out sets resist it.
    • TTS lacks a validated MOS standard.
    • We found no pricing, customer counts or funding data for Hamming, Cekura or Bluejay.

Robot scores collapse under small changes, and labs mostly grade themselves

Robotics has the least standardised evaluation of any modality. Simulation is cheap but fragile. Real-robot tests are costly, so labs run them in-house.

LIBERO shows how fragile simulation scores can be. LIBERO-PRO perturbed objects, initial states, instructions and environments.[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary Models that scored above 90% collapsed to 0%. They kept grasping when the target changed and ignored corrupted instructions. The authors call this "rote memorization of action sequences". LIBERO-Plus found drops from 95% to below 30% under modest camera and start-state changes.[13][13] LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626 Primary

Robot policies that ace LIBERO fail when the scene shifts

Task success of vision-language-action models on standard LIBERO and under small perturbations, 2025 studies.

0%25%50%75%100%Task success90%0%LIBERO-PROobjects, start states, instructions, scenes95%30%LIBERO-Pluscamera and start-state shifts
  • Standard LIBERO
  • Under small perturbations

What to notice

  • Bars are approximate bounds: '>90%' and '95%' before, '0%' and 'below 30%' after.
  • LIBERO-Plus models 'tend to ignore language instructions completely'.
Data table
GroupStandard LIBEROUnder small perturbations
LIBERO-PRO (objects, start states, instructions, scenes)90%0%
LIBERO-Plus (camera and start-state shifts)95%30%
Figure 8. Values are the bounds that the two papers report, not single model scores. LIBERO itself has 130 manipulation tasks in four suites. Source: LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827;[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626;[13][13] LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626 Primary LIBERO.[68][68] LIBERO, arXiv 2306.03310 Primary

Most robot papers run too few rollouts to support their claims. NVIDIA names four common flaws.[76][76] The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation Secondary Train and test scenes overlap, and fixed task sets saturate. Binary success hides causes, and rollouts are too few. Seventy rollouts at 90% success leave a confidence band about 15 points wide. A band of ±2 points needs about 1,030 rollouts, using Clopper-Pearson intervals.

A tight robot result needs far more rollouts than most papers run

Rollouts needed for a confidence band at a 90% success rate, using Clopper-Pearson intervals. One robot is 10 rollouts.

70 rolloutstypical of many papersAbout 1,030 rolloutsfor a band of ±2 points

= 10 rollouts

Data table
RowCategoryCount
70 rolloutsTypical paper70
About 1,030 rolloutsNeeded for ±2 points1,030
Figure 9. Seventy rollouts, typical of many papers, leave a band about 15 points wide. About 1,030 rollouts give a band of ±2 points. NVIDIA lists too few rollouts among four common flaws in robot evaluation. Source: The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation, with RoboLab-120 (July 2026).[76][76] The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation Secondary

Each lab tests its own way, on its own task suite. Google DeepMind runs Gemini Robotics 1.5 comparisons as interleaved A/B/n tests on one real work cell.[77][77] Gemini Robotics 1.5, arXiv 2510.03342 Primary It uses a 230-task benchmark and a continuous "progress score". Physical Intelligence tests π0.5 in "entirely new homes" and reports deployment throughput for π*0.6.[79][79] π0.5, arXiv 2504.16054 Primary[80][80] π*0.6, arXiv 2511.14759 Primary World models now help rank checkpoints. Google DeepMind checked a Veo-based simulator against more than 1,600 real runs.[83][83] Gemini Robotics policies in a Veo world simulator, arXiv 2512.10675 Primary The field accepts such results for ranking, not for absolute success claims.

Independent real-world evaluation started only in 2025 and 2026. RoboArena ran 612 double-blind comparisons across seven universities and ranked policies more accurately than central evaluation.[86][86] RoboArena, arXiv 2506.18123 Primary PhAIL scores real bin picking by units per hour.[90][90] Robotics & Automation News on PhAIL Secondary Robocurve, a three-person YC start-up, says plainly: "Labs evaluate in-house, and no independent group has stepped in".[91][91] Y Combinator, Robocurve profile Vendor The situation resembles text LLM evaluation around 2022.

Driving moved to pseudo-simulation

Open-loop metrics fell first, then the CARLA Leaderboard closed. On nuScenes, simple baselines that use only the car's own state compete without any perception.[95][95] Ego status in open-loop driving, arXiv 2312.03031 Primary The CARLA Leaderboard then closed for good, and version 2.1 had already made scores non-comparable with 2.0.[14][14] CARLA Autonomous Driving Leaderboard Primary NAVSIM v2 now fills the gap with pseudo-simulation on real data. It correlates with closed-loop simulation at R² = 0.8, against 0.7 for the best open-loop method.[15][15] NAVSIM v2 pseudo-simulation, arXiv 2506.04218 Primary Top navtest scores reach about 87.5, against a human level of 90.3 (snippets).[98][98] IDOL, arXiv 2605.31476 Primary[99][99] RAP, arXiv 2510.04333 Primary

  • BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    LIBERO (2023)130 lifelong-learning manipulation tasks in four suites[68][68] LIBERO, arXiv 2306.03310 PrimaryAbove 90%, several VLAs, 2025[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 PrimarySaturatedScores collapse under small perturbations[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary[13][13] LIBERO-Plus, arXiv 2510.13626 Primary
    CALVIN (2021)Long-horizon, language-conditioned manipulation[69][69] CALVIN, arXiv 2112.03227 PrimaryNot verifiedActiveCurrent top scores unconfirmed
    RoboCasa (2024)100 kitchen tasks with generated assets[70][70] RoboCasa, arXiv 2406.02523 PrimaryNot verifiedActiveCurrent top scores unconfirmed
    ManiSkill3 (2024)GPU-parallel simulation at 30,000+ FPS in 12 domains[71][71] ManiSkill3, arXiv 2410.00425 PrimaryNot a leaderboardInfrastructureSpeed does not prove realism
    Habitat 3.0 (2023)Social navigation and rearrangement with humanoid avatars[72][72] Habitat 3.0, arXiv 2310.13724 PrimaryNot verifiedActiveCurrent top scores unconfirmed
    BEHAVIOR-1K (2024)1,000 everyday activities in 50 scenes[73][73] BEHAVIOR-1K, arXiv 2403.09227 Primary12.4% success, Q-score 0.260, NeurIPS 2025 winner (provisional)[74][74] Robot Learning Collective on the BEHAVIOR Challenge Secondary[75][75] BEHAVIOR Challenge 2025 leaderboard PrimaryFrontierWe read only search snippets of the results
    RoboLab-120 (NVIDIA, Jul 2026)Graded subtasks, smoothness and robustness tests[76][76] The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation SecondaryNo policy chained more than four complex subtasksFrontierVendor benchmark
    Table 12. Simulation benchmarks for robot manipulation and household tasks, read November 2026.
  • How VLA labs evaluate

    • Google DeepMind runs Gemini Robotics 1.5 comparisons as interleaved A/B/n tests on one real work cell, with a 230-task benchmark and a continuous progress score with standard errors.[77][77] Gemini Robotics 1.5, arXiv 2510.03342 Primary Over 90% of development episodes ran in MuJoCo simulation, with checks that sim and real ranks agree. The team also released ASIMOV-2.0, a benchmark for semantic and physical safety.
    • The earlier Gemini Robotics report set up the visual, semantic and action generalisation tests that 1.5 extends.[78][78] Gemini Robotics, arXiv 2503.20020 Primary
    • Physical Intelligence tests π0.5 on long cleaning tasks in new homes.[79][79] π0.5, arXiv 2504.16054 Primary π*0.6 reports deployment metrics; its RECAP method "more than doubles task throughput" on laundry, box assembly and espresso.[80][80] π*0.6, arXiv 2511.14759 Primary
    • NVIDIA tests GR00T N1 on simulation benchmarks against imitation-learning baselines and on real humanoid tasks.[81][81] GR00T N1, arXiv 2503.14734 Primary
    • SIMPLER showed strong sim-real correlation once teams reduce the control and visual gaps.[82][82] SIMPLER, arXiv 2405.05941 Primary

    World models as evaluators

    • Google DeepMind's Veo-based world simulator (Dec 2025) predicts policy ranks in normal and out-of-distribution conditions and red-teams for safety violations. It was checked against 1,600+ real runs of eight Gemini Robotics checkpoints.[83][83] Gemini Robotics policies in a Veo world simulator, arXiv 2512.10675 Primary One secondary summary reports a Pearson correlation of 0.88 with real success (single source).[84][84] Moonlight review of the Veo evaluator Single source
    • GigaWorld-1 and WMBench (Jul 2026) pair 324,000+ simulated rollouts with real executions across seven video world models.[85][85] GigaWorld-1 and WMBench, arXiv 2607.02642 Primary
  • EffortWho runs itMethodScale and status
    RoboArena (CoRL 2025)Academic networkDistributed, double-blind pairwise tests on DROID robots; evaluators pick tasks7 policies, 7 universities, 612 comparisons, 4,284 episodes[86][86] RoboArena, arXiv 2506.18123 Primary
    AutoEval (2025)AcademicQueue-based tests around the clock, automatic success detection and resetsPublic BridgeData and WidowX scenes[87][87] AutoEval, arXiv 2503.24278 Primary
    RobotArena ∞ (Oct 2025)AcademicDigital twins from robot videos; VLM scoring plus crowd preferenceResearch release[88][88] RobotArena ∞, arXiv 2510.23571 Primary
    Open X-Embodiment (2023)21 institutionsCross-lab tests of RT-X on 22 robotsTemplate for multi-site tests[89][89] Open X-Embodiment, arXiv 2310.08864 Primary
    PhAIL (31 Mar 2026)Positronic Robotics with Nebius and TolokaReal bin-to-bin picking, scored by units per hour and mean time between failuresRepeated runs with telemetry; a gap to human operators remains[90][90] Robotics & Automation News on PhAIL Secondary
    Robocurve (YC S26)Three-person start-upReproducible real-robot benchmarks as a serviceOpen-source "Inspect Robots" v1 (single source)[91][91] Y Combinator, Robocurve profile Vendor[92][92] startuphub.ai on Robocurve Single source
    Table 13. Independent real-robot evaluation efforts, 2023 to 2026. All of them are new or small.
    • RoboArena's live leaderboard runs as a JavaScript app that we could not read.[86][86] RoboArena, arXiv 2506.18123 Primary
    • AutoEval "nearly fully eliminate[s] human involvement", and its results match hand-run tests.[87][87] AutoEval, arXiv 2503.24278 Primary
    • Hugging Face LeRobot has 28,706 GitHub stars and a push on 5 Nov 2026.[93][93] GitHub, LeRobot Primary LIBERO's code last changed in March 2025.[94][94] GitHub, LIBERO Primary
  • BenchmarkMeasuresTop score (model, date)StatusFlaw
    nuScenes open-loop planningL2 error and collisions against logged pathsNot meaningfulDiscreditedEgo-status baselines without perception compete[95][95] Ego status in open-loop driving, arXiv 2312.03031 Primary
    CARLA Leaderboard 2.xClosed-loop route driving in simulationNot availablePermanently closed[14][14] CARLA Autonomous Driving Leaderboard PrimaryVersion 2.1 made scores non-comparable with 2.0
    Bench2Drive (2024)Closed-loop multi-ability tests in CARLA[96][96] Bench2Drive, arXiv 2406.03877 PrimaryNot verifiedActiveDepends on CARLA
    NAVSIM v1 (2024)Non-reactive simulation on real data over short horizons[97][97] NAVSIM, arXiv 2406.15349 PrimaryNot verifiedSuperseded by v2Short horizons only
    NAVSIM v2 (Jun 2025)Pseudo-simulation with Gaussian-splatting future views[15][15] NAVSIM v2 pseudo-simulation, arXiv 2506.04218 PrimaryEPDMS about 87.5 on navtest, against a human level of 90.3; 34–37 on navhard (snippets)[98][98] IDOL, arXiv 2605.31476 Primary[99][99] RAP, arXiv 2510.04333 PrimaryMain public benchmarkOlder "EPDMS*" numbers predate a leaderboard fix
    Table 14. Driving evaluation moved from open-loop metrics to closed-loop simulation, and then to pseudo-simulation on real data.
    • CARLA 2.1 (March 2025) changed the infraction penalty from exponential to linear.[14][14] CARLA Autonomous Driving Leaderboard Primary
    • Bench2Drive grew out of the high variance in CARLA route scores.[96][96] Bench2Drive, arXiv 2406.03877 Primary
    • Many papers report tens of rollouts per task, which leaves a band of roughly 15 points.[76][76] The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation Secondary
    • Sim and world-model results support ranking, not absolute claims.
    • Robot safety tests such as ASIMOV-2.0 stay semantic and physical. None ties behaviour to legal duties such as the EU Machinery Regulation.[77][77] Gemini Robotics 1.5, arXiv 2510.03342 Primary
    • We found no 2026 data on Waymo challenges, nuPlan, or safety cases under UL 4600 and ISO 34502.

Classic ML has a mature, regulator-written method, and it stops at generative AI

Credit scorecards and fraud detectors have been validated the same way since 2011. The method rests on lifecycle review, independence and risk tiers, not on benchmark scores.

SR 26-2 replaced SR 11-7 in April 2026, and it leaves out generative AI. The Federal Reserve issued SR 26-2 on 17 April 2026.[101][101] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 Primary It supersedes SR 11-7 (2011) and SR 21-8 on anti-money-laundering models. It is "expected to be most relevant" to banks with over $30 billion in assets. Footnote 3 states that generative and agentic AI models "are not within the scope of this guidance".[18][18] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 attachment Primary The OCC and FDIC issued matching texts (single secondary source).[102][102] CRA Insights on SR 26-2 Single source

The EU AI Act draws its own line between credit and fraud. Annex III lists creditworthiness checks and credit scoring of natural persons as high-risk. It excludes AI that detects financial fraud. It adds risk assessment and pricing in life and health insurance.[19][19] EU AI Act, Annex III Primary A bank's credit model therefore falls under the high-risk rules, but its fraud model does not.

Classic validation rests on ground truth that agents mostly lack

Classic ML (credit, fraud, pricing)Generative and agentic AINote
Ground-truth outcome for back-testingYesPartlyDefault or fraud outcomes exist; agents mostly lack one
Agreed fairness metricsYesNoDemographic parity and equalised odds for tabular models
Drift scopeInput and prediction distributionsAlso model-version and tool changes
US supervisory guidanceSR 26-2 (Apr 2026)NoFootnote 3 excludes generative and agentic AI
Public arenas or leaderboardsNoYes
Validation vocabularyConceptual soundness, effective challenge, outcomes analysis, vendor validationPartlyThe same terms transfer well to agent evaluation
Table 15. How model validation for credit and fraud models differs from evaluation of generative and agentic AI, November 2026. Our synthesis of the source research. 'Partial' means the practice exists for some systems only. SR 26-2 leaves US banks without supervisory guidance for generative and agentic systems. Source: Federal Reserve SR 26-2 and attachment;[101][101] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 Primary[18][18] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 attachment Primary EU AI Act Annex III.[19][19] EU AI Act, Annex III Primary

Classic monitoring vendors are moving to agents, and open drift tools are stalling. Arthur's homepage now leads with agent governance and security.[106][106] Arthur website Vendor CrowdStrike agreed to buy Fiddler on 3 November 2026 for agent observability.[108][108] CrowdStrike on Fiddler (press release) Primary NannyML last received a code push in July 2025 and whylogs in January 2025.[111][111] GitHub, NannyML Primary[112][112] GitHub, whylogs Primary Tabular fairness and drift tools now look like a commodity layer. Model-risk specialists such as ValidMind carry classic validation forward.[103][103] ValidMind, SR 26-2 use case Vendor

  • ComponentWhat it checks
    Conceptual soundnessDesign, assumptions, data selection and developmental testing; interpretability or benchmarking where theory review fits poorly
    Outcomes analysisOutputs against real outcomes, for example through back-testing and outlier analysis
    Ongoing monitoringPerformance as products, exposures, clients, data relevance or markets change
    Vendor modelsThe same checks for bought models: soundness, design, development data, performance and monitoring
    Table 16. The four validation components that SR 26-2 asks banks to cover. Source: SR 26-2 attachment.[18][18] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 attachment Primary The OCC issued it as Bulletin 2026-13 and the FDIC as FIL-15-2026 (single secondary source).[102][102] CRA Insights on SR 26-2 Single source Its principles still apply to traditional models and to non-generative, non-agentic AI.
  • ToolTypeFocus in Nov 2026Activity
    ValidMindCommercial MRM platformMaps SR 26-2 to inventory, tiering, tests, monitoring, documentation and three lines of defence[103][103] ValidMind, SR 26-2 use case VendorRecommends MRM principles for GenAI anyway
    Evidently AIOpen source, Apache-2.0Drift, data quality and performance; now also LLM and agent evals with 100+ metrics[104][104] Evidently AI website Vendor8,043 stars; push on 29 Sep 2026[105][105] GitHub API, Evidently Primary
    ArthurCommercialAgent discovery, governance, observability and runtime security[106][106] Arthur website Vendorarthur-engine has 93 stars; push on 5 Nov 2026[107][107] GitHub, arthur-engine Primary
    FiddlerCommercialAgent observability as CrowdStrike "Falcon Observe"[108][108] CrowdStrike on Fiddler (press release) PrimaryCrowdStrike agreed to buy it on 3 Nov 2026
    FairlearnOpen source, MITGroup fairness metrics and mitigation2,306 stars; push on 24 Oct 2026[109][109] GitHub, Fairlearn Primary
    AIF360 (IBM)Open source, Apache-2.0Fairness metrics and mitigation2,881 stars; push on 15 Jun 2026[110][110] GitHub API, AIF360 Primary
    NannyMLOpen sourcePerformance estimation and drift2,161 stars; last push 12 Jul 2025[111][111] GitHub, NannyML Primary
    whylogsOpen sourceData logging and drift2,838 stars; last push 10 Jan 2025[112][112] GitHub, whylogs Primary
    alibi-detectOpen sourceDrift and outlier detectionLast push 11 Dec 2025[113][113] GitHub, alibi-detect Primary
    Table 17. Classic ML validation and monitoring tools, with GitHub activity read in November 2026.
    • Arthur's homepage no longer mentions tabular models, drift or fairness outside old testimonials. It recently released "Deckard", an open-source scanner for rogue agents.[106][106] Arthur website Vendor

    Two of the five open-source drift and fairness libraries have stalled

    GitHub stars of open-source classic ML monitoring libraries, read November 2026. Circle area is proportional to stars; stalled projects are grey.

    Evidently AI8,043AIF360 (IBM)2,881Fairlearn2,306whylogs2,838NannyML2,161Active: last push in 2026Stalled: last push in 2025Evidently stays active partlybecause it added LLM and agentevals.
    • Active: last push in 2026
    • Stalled: last push in 2025

    Circle area = GitHub stars

    • Evidently AI: 8,043 (last push 29 Sep 2026)
    • AIF360 (IBM): 2,881 (last push 15 Jun 2026)
    • whylogs: 2,838 (last push 10 Jan 2025)
    • Fairlearn: 2,306 (last push 24 Oct 2026)
    • NannyML: 2,161 (last push 12 Jul 2025)
    Data table
    ItemGroupValueNote
    Evidently AIActive: last push in 20268,043last push 29 Sep 2026
    AIF360 (IBM)Active: last push in 20262,881last push 15 Jun 2026
    whylogsStalled: last push in 20252,838last push 10 Jan 2025
    FairlearnActive: last push in 20262,306last push 24 Oct 2026
    NannyMLStalled: last push in 20252,161last push 12 Jul 2025
    Figure 10. Stars measure attention, not use. alibi-detect (last push 11 Dec 2025) is omitted because its star count was not recorded. Source: GitHub API.[105][105] GitHub API, Evidently Primary[110][110] GitHub API, AIF360 Primary[112][112] GitHub, whylogs Primary[109][109] GitHub, Fairlearn Primary[111][111] GitHub, NannyML Primary[113][113] GitHub, alibi-detect Primary

Outside text and generation, almost nobody checks the numbers independently

Nine lessons hold across all modalities. The last one matters most: independent evaluators are scarce wherever AI leaves the screen.

Every ladder saturates, and the replacement starts the clock again. Vision "Pro" tests, GUI grounding and speech reasoning all neared their ceilings within 12–24 months.[1][1] Qwen3-VL technical report, arXiv 2511.21631 Primary[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary[17][17] BenchLM, ScreenSpot-Pro Secondary Arenas then rank by votes, but tight ranks carry no meaning. The vision top ten spans 16 points, and the video arenas disagree on first place.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary[6][6] Arena, text-to-video leaderboard Primary[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard Primary

Real-world tests lag academic ones, and statistics stay thin. Deepfake detectors lose about half their AUC in the wild.[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary LIBERO scores collapse under small perturbations.[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary Robot papers run too few rollouts, and Artificial Analysis admits its intervals may run narrow.[76][76] The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation Secondary[48][48] Artificial Analysis, image methodology Primary Lab and aggregator numbers also disagree. MMMU-Pro differs by 3.4 points between Google's page and BenchLM for one model.[24][24] Google DeepMind, Gemini Pro page Vendor[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary

Private data and fitting checks are the best defence against gaming. The Open ASR Leaderboard adds private held-out data, cleans references, detects benchmark fitting and verifies contributor claims.[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary[51][51] Open ASR Leaderboard, app.py Primary Frozen judges need the same discipline: GenEval's judge drifted by up to 17.7% from human judgment.[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary Every judge model needs scheduled re-calibration on fresh human labels.

Robotics, GUI agents and deepfake detection have the weakest independent checks

Which evaluation building blocks exist in each modality, November 2026.

ModalityFrontier test still separates models Live arena or public leaderboard Independent evaluator re-runs or rates models itselfPrivate or held-out data Real-world conditions
Vision-language Partly or limited HallusionBench 60–67; most 'Pro' tests 85–93% Yes Arena: 1.49M votes, but top ten within 16 pts Partly or limited Arena votes and aggregators; no fixed-harness re-runs Partly or limited OCRBench v2 private set; MMMU answers public Partly or limited WildVision real-user prompts, dormant since 2024
Frontier test still separates models: HallusionBench 60–67; most 'Pro' tests 85–93%Live arena or public leaderboard: Arena: 1.49M votes, but top ten within 16 ptsIndependent evaluator: Arena votes and aggregators; no fixed-harness re-runsPrivate or held-out data: OCRBench v2 private set; MMMU answers publicReal-world conditions: WildVision real-user prompts, dormant since 2024
Image and video generation Yes GenEval 2 at 35.8%; VBench-2.0 Yes Arena and Artificial Analysis Yes AA pays vetted raters; verdicts split on video Not covered in our sources Partly or limited Curated prompts from 10 use cases
Frontier test still separates models: GenEval 2 at 35.8%; VBench-2.0Live arena or public leaderboard: Arena and Artificial AnalysisIndependent evaluator: AA pays vetted raters; verdicts split on videoReal-world conditions: Curated prompts from 10 use cases
Deepfake detection Yes Deepfake-Eval-2024 No No standing leaderboard Partly or limited Academic snapshots only Not covered in our sources Yes In-the-wild fakes from 88 sites, 52 languages
Frontier test still separates models: Deepfake-Eval-2024Live arena or public leaderboard: No standing leaderboardIndependent evaluator: Academic snapshots onlyReal-world conditions: In-the-wild fakes from 88 sites, 52 languages
Speech recognition and TTS Partly or limited Top WER about 5.3% Yes Open ASR Leaderboard; AA Speech Arena; TTS Arena V2 Yes Open ASR maintainers; results file gated Yes Appen, DataoceanAI, Voice Arena sets Partly or limited Cleaned conversational sets; accented speech
Frontier test still separates models: Top WER about 5.3%Live arena or public leaderboard: Open ASR Leaderboard; AA Speech Arena; TTS Arena V2Independent evaluator: Open ASR maintainers; results file gatedPrivate or held-out data: Appen, DataoceanAI, Voice Arena setsReal-world conditions: Cleaned conversational sets; accented speech
Voice agents Yes τ-voice; Full-Duplex-Bench-v2 Partly or limited AA speech-to-speech index and arena Partly or limited AA τ-Voice; vendors serve builders only Not covered in our sources Partly or limited Simulated noisy, accented callers
Frontier test still separates models: τ-voice; Full-Duplex-Bench-v2Live arena or public leaderboard: AA speech-to-speech index and arenaIndependent evaluator: AA τ-Voice; vendors serve builders onlyReal-world conditions: Simulated noisy, accented callers
Robotics Yes BEHAVIOR-1K winner at 12.4%; RoboLab-120 Partly or limited RoboArena: 612 comparisons No Almost none; RoboArena, PhAIL, Robocurve new and small Partly or limited Labs' private task suites, not shared Partly or limited Lab work cells; PhAIL real picking
Frontier test still separates models: BEHAVIOR-1K winner at 12.4%; RoboLab-120Live arena or public leaderboard: RoboArena: 612 comparisonsIndependent evaluator: Almost none; RoboArena, PhAIL, Robocurve new and smallPrivate or held-out data: Labs' private task suites, not sharedReal-world conditions: Lab work cells; PhAIL real picking
Autonomous driving Yes NAVSIM v2 navhard about 34–37 Yes NAVSIM leaderboard; CARLA closed Partly or limited NAVSIM only; no industry safety-case view Not covered in our sources Partly or limited Real data with pseudo-simulation
Frontier test still separates models: NAVSIM v2 navhard about 34–37Live arena or public leaderboard: NAVSIM leaderboard; CARLA closedIndependent evaluator: NAVSIM only; no industry safety-case viewReal-world conditions: Real data with pseudo-simulation
GUI grounding No ScreenSpot-Pro at 92.7% No Aggregators only No Lab numbers dominate Not covered in our sources No Static screens only
Frontier test still separates models: ScreenSpot-Pro at 92.7%Live arena or public leaderboard: Aggregators onlyIndependent evaluator: Lab numbers dominateReal-world conditions: Static screens only
Classic ML Not covered in our sources No benchmark race No No arenas Yes Bank model-risk teams, ValidMind Not covered in our sources Yes Back-testing on real outcomes
Frontier test still separates models: No benchmark raceLive arena or public leaderboard: No arenasIndependent evaluator: Bank model-risk teams, ValidMindReal-world conditions: Back-testing on real outcomes

What to notice

  • Only generation, speech recognition and classic ML have a full mark in the independent-evaluator column.
  • Robotics and GUI grounding rely on lab self-reports.
Figure 11. Marks are our reading of the source research and its summary table of independent evaluators per modality. Source: Ascending Labs synthesis of the sources in this chapter, 5 Nov 2026; key inputs are Arena,[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary Artificial Analysis,[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard Primary[9][9] Artificial Analysis, speech-to-speech Primary Open ASR Leaderboard,[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary Deepfake-Eval-2024,[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary RoboArena,[86][86] RoboArena, arXiv 2506.18123 Primary NAVSIM[15][15] NAVSIM v2 pseudo-simulation, arXiv 2506.04218 Primary and SR 26-2.[101][101] Federal Reserve, SR 26-2 Primary
    1. Every ladder saturates within one or two generations. Vision "Pro" tests, GUI grounding and speech reasoning all neared their ceilings within 12–24 months.
    2. Private data and fitting checks resist gaming. The Open ASR Leaderboard adds private held-out data, cleans references, detects benchmark fitting and verifies contributor claims.[11][11] Open ASR Leaderboard, init.py (version log) Primary[51][51] Open ASR Leaderboard, app.py Primary
    3. Arenas disagree, and tight ranks carry no meaning. The video arenas disagree on first place; the vision top ten sits within 16 points.[4][4] Arena, vision leaderboard Primary[6][6] Arena, text-to-video leaderboard Primary[7][7] Artificial Analysis, text-to-video leaderboard Primary
    4. Frozen judges drift. GenEval's judge drifted by up to 17.7% from human judgment.[5][5] GenEval 2, arXiv 2512.16853 Primary
    5. A new modality costs task success. On τ-voice, the same task falls from 85% in text to 26–51% in voice.[10][10] τ-voice, arXiv 2603.13686 Primary Single-turn skill tests overstate deployed conduct.
    6. Lab and aggregator numbers disagree. MMMU-Pro differs by 3.4 points between Google's page and BenchLM for one model.[24][24] Google DeepMind, Gemini Pro page Vendor[2][2] BenchLM, MMMU-Pro Secondary Only a re-run in a fixed harness settles it.
    7. Real-world tests lag academic ones. Deepfake detectors lose about half their AUC in the wild; LIBERO collapses under small perturbations.[8][8] Deepfake-Eval-2024, arXiv 2503.02857 Primary[12][12] LIBERO-PRO, arXiv 2510.03827 Primary
    8. Statistics stay thin. Robot papers run too few rollouts, and AA admits its intervals may run narrow.[76][76] The Robot Report on NVIDIA robot evaluation Secondary[48][48] Artificial Analysis, image methodology Primary
    9. Independent evaluators remain scarce outside text and generation.
  • ModalityMain independent evaluatorsGap
    Vision-languageAggregators for scores; Arena for votesNo fixed-harness re-runs of frontier models
    Generation and deepfakesArtificial Analysis; Arena; academic deepfake snapshotsTwo arenas give split verdicts; no maintained deepfake board
    ASR and TTSOpen ASR Leaderboard; AA Speech Arena; TTS Arena V2Gated results; no MOS standard
    Voice agentsAA (τ-Voice); τ-voice authorsTesting vendors offer builder-side QA only; no buyer-facing rating
    RoboticsAlmost none: RoboArena, PhAIL and Robocurve are new and smallLabs self-report
    DrivingNAVSIM leaderboardCARLA closed; no industry safety-case view
    GUI groundingAggregators onlyLab numbers dominate
    Classic MLModel-risk validation by bank MRM teams and ValidMind; no arenasSR 26-2 excludes GenAI and agents
    Table 18. Who checks the numbers in each modality, November 2026.
    • No official, dated November 2026 leaderboard for Video-MME, LongVideoBench, MVBench or EgoSchema.
    • No 2026 primary source for POPE scores; the field treats POPE as saturated, but we did not verify it.
    • No official Anthropic or OpenAI multimodal tables for Claude Fable 5 or GPT-6.x models; only aggregator numbers.
    • The 94% MMMU-Pro claim for GPT-5.4 Pro stays unverified.[33][33] af.net on GPT-5.4 Pro Single source
    • No primary 2026 scores for ImageReward, PickScore, GenEval or T2I-CompBench.
    • No search of 2026 watermark-robustness or voice-clone detection tests.
    • The Open ASR results file requires a login, so its top WERs rest on secondary blogs.
    • We could not read the TTS Arena V2 or RoboArena rankings.
    • No funding data for Hamming, Cekura or Bluejay.
    • Current LIBERO and CALVIN top scores not verified from primary sources.
    • BEHAVIOR Challenge results and NAVSIM v2 scores read only in search snippets.
    • The Veo evaluator's Pearson correlation of 0.88 rests on one secondary summary.[84][84] Moonlight review of the Veo evaluator Single source
    • OCC Bulletin 2026-13 and FDIC FIL-15-2026 texts not opened.
    • No 2026 market size for classic MRM tools, and no enforcement data under SR 26-2.

Sources

Every number keeps its date and source. Badges mark source quality: primary, secondary, vendor (a claim about the publisher's own product), single source, or estimate.

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    T2I-CompBench++, arXiv 2307.06350. Primary arxiv.org
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    Big Bench Audio dataset card. Primary huggingface.co
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