AI speeds up 3rd party safety researchers by ~1.6x (via self-reports)

TL;DR: Labs are accelerating due to automated AI research and development. As an upper bound, in March 2026, Anthropic researchers self-reported producing 4x more output with AI tools than without them.We lack public evidence on how this may differentially impact safety versus capabilities. As a first measurement of automated safety-specific research uplift, we surveyed 52 third-party AI safety professionals from 20+ orgs and found a median reported speedup of 1.58x.We think it is important to d...