“established tech firm” means either an Big Tech giant (e.g. FAANG), or an AI lab (e.g. Anthropic, OpenAI), and excludes open-source demos (e.g. GitHub projects).

“consumer-grade” means that the autonomous AI is accessible to consumers without significant challenge, need of luck, or retooling. For example, if I am personally able to use it and verify its autonomy within the first few minutes of use, that would satisfy this criterion.

“autonomous AI” means that the AI system has autonomy in one of two ways, either (a) over a notable amount of time, while demonstrating the ability to plan and iterate, or (b) over important computer systems (with or without a clear demonstration of the ability to plan or iterate).

Autonomy over time with planning and iteration could look like an AI that “talks to itself” by writing its own prompts, and doing so iteratively for a non-trivial amount of time in pursuit of some project. For example, a user initially prompts an AI to write a computer program, and the AI then prompts itself to make a plan and subsequently designs and redesigns a computer program for 30 minutes.

Autonomy over important computer systems means an AI with the power to directly control a user’s computer or online accounts. For example, an AI that could make a purchase online using a user’s Amazon account would count. As another example, an AI that could freely use a computer’s pointer to open, close, and use programs at will, would also count.