The best AI agents are terrible freelancers - for now

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Top AI agents fail at freelance work, according to a new study.
• The study assessed Gemini 2.5 Pro, GPT-5, and other agents.
• Close to half of the US workforce did freelance work in 2025.

If you're a freelance worker and you've been stressed about the prospect of losing your job to AI, you can rest easy -- at least for the time being.

According to a new study conducted by Scale AI and the Center for AI Safety, the most cutting-edge AI agents are currently only able to automate less than 3% of the tasks required from the average independent contractor, "failing to complete most projects at a level that would be accepted as commissioned work in a realistic freelancing environment," the authors wrote.

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