Design success

Area: definition. Apply the shared measurement protocol.

Estimated progress toward AI-managed biology

40% complete — judgment-based estimate as of November 7, 2026. Confidence: low. The scale starts at 0% before ChatGPT's public release in 2022 and ends at 100% when AI manages the field's continuing advancement without human participation. This rates the outcome's contribution to that transition, not the percentage of tasks solved, a measured fraction of the field, or time remaining.

The shared scoring rubric uses five equally weighted dimensions: execution, breadth, agenda-setting, validation, and sustained autonomous improvement. Points for this outcome are 15 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 40/100, in that order; each dimension has a maximum of 20. These component judgments make the estimate inspectable, but are not independently measured scores.

Reason for the estimate: Experimentally successful binders demonstrate strong bounded design capability across targets. People still choose targets, run acceptance assays and establish broader biological utility. The dated baseline below supplies the findings and source links used for this assessment. Unmeasured components receive no demonstrated-progress credit; missing evidence does not prove a missing capability.

What would move the score: Record all synthesized designs per target; require prespecified binding, function, stability and off-target thresholds and independent assay replication. Higher autonomy scores additionally require AI to select worthwhile work, validate results and improve the process over repeated cycles without human research management, repair or adjudication. Lower the score if replication fails, quality regresses or previously hidden human assistance is found. Preserve this dated estimate when adding future assessments.

Measurement and acceptance rule

Experimentally functional designs / all synthesized AI proposals, with explicit activity, stability, and specificity requirements.

Evidence requirements

Freeze predictions before experiments and preserve all designed candidates, including failed ones. Use controls, biological replicates, independent assays, and a second laboratory. Record sequence and family overlap with known data. Do not count a favorable predicted structure as experimental confirmation of activity or mechanism.

Related milestones

See the area's proposed milestones. Proposed targets are distinct from the dated evidence below.

Baseline as of November 7 2026

Status: Measured experimental design success. Sources accessed November 7, 2026. This is a documentary baseline, not an independent replication or an assertion of the worldwide best result. An unknown measurement is not zero.

Dated findings

2025 publication: BindCraft reports target-specific experimental binder success rates of 10–100%, averaging 46.3%, with affinities predominantly in the nanomolar range. BindCraft, Nature.

Interpretation and tracking value

The reported average is not a pooled success fraction for every generated or synthesized design, and binding alone does not establish all activity, stability and specificity requirements.

Next comparable measurement

Record all synthesized designs per target; require prespecified binding, function, stability and off-target thresholds and independent assay replication. Preserve this dated observation; append future results with their model/system version, denominator, budget and evidence level rather than overwriting it.