Benchmark Almanac

BrowseComp-Plus

GPT-5 70.1% leads since August 2025
GPT-5 70.1% leads since August 2025
In use

Deep research agents answer 830 BrowseComp questions by searching a fixed corpus of about 100,000 human-verified documents.

BrowseComp-Plus is a different evaluation from BrowseComp. Labs use different retrievers and graders, so scores vary by setup.

Released
August 2025
Kind
Deep research
Level
Expert
Scored
Graded by a model
Answers
Short answer
Tasks
All public
Strongest model tested
Claude Opus 4.5 #61 on the capability index
Last in a launch post
October 2026
Last model added
October 2026
Scores refreshed
November 12th, 2026

In the authors’ words

Deep-Research agents, which integrate large language models (LLMs) with search tools, have shown success in improving the effectiveness of handling complex queries that require iterative search planning and reasoning over search results. Evaluations on current benchmarks like BrowseComp relies on black-box live web search APIs, have notable limitations in (1) fairness: dynamic and opaque web APIs hinder fair comparisons and reproducibility of deep research methods; (2) transparency: lack of control over the document corpus makes it difficult to isolate retriever contributions. In other words, the current evaluations may compare a complete deep research system at a given time, but they do not foster well-controlled experiments to provide insights into the capability of underlying deep research LLMs. To address these challenges, we introduce BrowseComp-Plus, a benchmark derived from BrowseComp, employing a fixed, carefully curated corpus. Each query in BrowseComp-Plus includes human-verified supporting documents and mined challenging negatives, enabling controlled experimentation. The benchmark is shown to be effective in distinguishing the performance of deep research systems. For instance, the open-source model Search-R1, when paired with the BM25 retriever, achieves 3.86% accuracy, whereas the GPT-5 achieves 55.9%. Integrating the GPT-5 with the Qwen3-Embedding-8B retriever further enhances its accuracy to 70.1% with fewer search calls. This benchmark allows comprehensive evaluation and disentangled analysis of deep research agents and retrieval methods, fostering insights into retrieval effectiveness, citation accuracy, and context engineering in Deep-Research system.

Abstract of BrowseComp-Plus: A More Fair and Transparent Evaluation Benchmark of Deep-Research Agent (arXiv:2508.06600, CC0)
10
Entries on its own leaderboard, 7 models we track
3
Launch posts list it, from 2 labs
1
System card reports it, from 1 lab

GPT-5 leads with 70.1% among models released by August 2025

Best score per entry from the benchmark's own leaderboard, read on November 12th, 2026. Where a model ran with several settings or harnesses, we keep its best. Names in gray aren't in our model list: fine-tunes, agent systems, products and older models. They don't count toward leaders.

GPT-5 leads with 70.1%, claims included

Best score per model from every source, including labs’ own numbers and claims Epoch AI collected from reports and papers. Labs pick their own settings, so a claim can beat an independent run of the same model.

The newest model with a score here came out in August 2025, and nobody has tested a newer one. Among the 20 highest-ranked models on the capability index, these have no score yet:

  1. 1 GPT-5 70.1%
  2. 2 o3 63.5%
  3. 3 gpt-oss-120b high 42.9%
  4. 4 Claude Sonnet 4 36.8%
  5. 5 Claude Opus 4 36.1%
  6. 6 GPT-4.1 35.4%
  7. 7 Gemini 2.5 Flash (snapshot unspecified) 33%
  8. 8 Gemini 2.5 Pro (snapshot unspecified) 28.7%
  9. 9 SearchR1-32B 10.4%
  10. 10 Qwen3-32B 10.4%

Source: Official BrowseComp-Plus leaderboard

#EntryScoreSettingDateSource
1 GPT-5 70.1% Qwen3-Embed-8B Aug 2025 Official leaderboard
2 o3 63.5% Qwen3-Embed-8B Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
3 gpt-oss-120b 42.9% high, Qwen3-Embed-8B Aug 2025 Official leaderboard
4 Claude Sonnet 4 36.8% Qwen3-Embed-8B May 2025 Official leaderboard
5 Claude Opus 4 36.1% Qwen3-Embed-8B May 2025 Official leaderboard
6 GPT-4.1 35.4% Qwen3-Embed-8B Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
7 Gemini 2.5 Flash (snapshot unspecified) 33% Qwen3-Embed-8B Official leaderboard
8 Gemini 2.5 Pro (snapshot unspecified) 28.7% Qwen3-Embed-8B Official leaderboard
9 SearchR1-32B 10.4% Qwen3-Embed-8B Official leaderboard
10 Qwen3-32B 10.4% Qwen3-Embed-8B Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
#ModelScoreSettingDateSource
1 GPT-5 70.1% Qwen3-Embed-8B Aug 2025 Official leaderboard
2 Claude Opus 4.5 67.6% Nov 2025 Lab model card
3 o3 63.5% Qwen3-Embed-8B Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
4 Mercury 3 55.2% Oct 2026 Lab model card
5 gpt-oss-120b 42.9% high, Qwen3-Embed-8B Aug 2025 Official leaderboard
6 LFM3-1.7B 37% Oct 2026 Lab model card
7 Claude Sonnet 4 36.8% Qwen3-Embed-8B May 2025 Official leaderboard
8 Claude Opus 4 36.1% Qwen3-Embed-8B May 2025 Official leaderboard
9 GPT-4.1 35.4% Qwen3-Embed-8B Apr 2025 Official leaderboard
10 LFM2.5-2.6B 26.9% Aug 2026 Lab model card
11 Qwen3-32B 10.4% Qwen3-Embed-8B Apr 2025 Official leaderboard

Labs report scores for 4 models in their cards. Switch the scores above to rank them together.

2 models have held number one on the official leaderboard since its release in August 2025 2 models have held number one with claims included since its release in August 2025

Lab claims count from the day the card came out, independent runs from the model’s release. We draw one row each for the benchmark’s own leaderboard and what labs claim in their cards.

OpenAI Anthropic
Own leaderboard Not tested since Aug 2025
GPT-5 70.1%
Lab claims 1 leader

Sources: Official BrowseComp-Plus leaderboard and labs’ model cards

Scores over time

All the scores we have, one dot each, so a model tested at several settings appears more than once.

On the benchmark’s own leaderboard Reported by the lab in its model card Best so far
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 2026 2027 Near the ceiling (85%) GPT-5 o3 GPT-4.1 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 2025 2026 2027 Near the ceiling (85%) GPT-5 o3

Sources: Official BrowseComp-Plus leaderboard and labs’ model cards

2 labs put it in a launch post in the last six months

Launch posts from every lab that has listed it, one tick per post. Tall colored ticks include it, and short gray ones leave it out.

Liquid AI
Inception Labs
DateLaunch postScoreAs the post writes it
Oct 27, 2026 LFM3-1.7B 37 BrowseComp-Plus (OpenClaw subset)
Oct 19, 2026 Mercury 3 55.2 BrowseComp+
Aug 4, 2026 LFM2.5-2.6B 26.9 BrowseComp+ (OpenClaw)

One system card reports it

Besides launch posts, we read the system cards, model cards and technical reports labs publish with a release. They report far more, including safety and frontier-risk tests.

DateDocumentScoreAs the document writes itSection
Nov 24, 2025 Claude Opus 4.5 system card 67.6 BrowseComp-Plus agentic search, with tool result clearing, Qwen3-Embedding-8B search, no fetch tool, single run (Table 2.6.A; 72.89% with tool result clearing + memory; Figure 2.6.2.A with fetch tool 70.48% base to 85.30% with subagents) Capabilities

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