Sakana AI Scientist
https://sakana.ai/ai-scientist/
Tokyo-based Sakana AI's autonomous research agent — generates ideas, runs experiments, writes papers, peer-reviews. v1 paper Aug-2024 (arXiv 2408.06292); v2 update 2025. **Sakana parent: $214M Series A Sep-2024 ($1.5B val; NEA + Khosla)**.
Active · Verified 2026-10-28 · fresh as of 2026-10-28 · 21 cited facts, 1 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Type
- Autonomous AI research-paper-writing agent vendor fix
- Tier
- T2
- Created
- 2024-08 (AI Scientist v1) vendor fix
- Latest release
- not applicable — wrong section fix
- License
- The AI Scientist Source Code License v1.0 (based on Responsible AI Source Code License; not OSI-approved) repo fix
- GitHub
- SakanaAI/AI-Scientist — ~14.8k stars, last commit 2025-12 (v2: SakanaAI/AI-Scientist-v2 ~7.4k stars) repo fix
- Pricing
- not applicable — wrong section fix
- Funding
- Sakana AI: ¥32B (~$200M) Series B Nov-2025 (MUFG, Khosla Ventures and others); $214M Series A Sep-2024 vendor fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-28 fix
- Layer
- agent-infra repo fix
- Developer activity
- OpenRank 0.32 (12-mo avg 1.91) · 2 participants — 2026-09 third-party fix
When to use
Optimised for: autonomous ML-research-paper drafting
Anti-fit: not applicable — wrong section
Pros & cons
Pros
One of the most-cited autonomous-science agents; David Ha + Llion Jones founders; OSS reference implementation; $1.5B val Sakana parent.
Cons
Quality of generated papers heavily disputed; humans-still-needed-everywhere caveats; not yet a productised platform.
Claims & capabilities
**Sakana AI: $214M Series A Sep-2024 ($1.5B val; NEA + Khosla + Lux Capital)**; AI Scientist v1 paper Aug-2024 (arXiv 2408.06292); v2 update 2025
Technical surface
- API surface
- not applicable — wrong section
- Backend storage
- not applicable — wrong section
- Deployment
- Self-hosted only — research code
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- not applicable — wrong section
- MCP
- not applicable — wrong section
- A2A
- not applicable — wrong section
- OpenTelemetry
- not applicable — wrong section
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Sources (20 cited facts, 1 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is Autonomous AI research-paper-writing agent vendor
- What it does & what's distinct Tokyo-based Sakana AI's autonomous research agent — generates ideas, runs experiments, w… vendor
- Claims / benefits **Sakana AI: $214M Series A Sep-2024 ($1.5B val; NEA + Khosla + Lux Capital)**; AI Scien… vendor
- Created 2024-08 (AI Scientist v1) vendor
- License The AI Scientist Source Code License v1.0 (based on Responsible AI Source Code License; … repo
- GitHub SakanaAI/AI-Scientist — ~14.8k stars, last commit 2025-12 (v2: SakanaAI/AI-Scientist-v2 … repo
- Funding Sakana AI: ¥32B (~$200M) Series B Nov-2025 (MUFG, Khosla Ventures and others); $214M Ser… vendor
- Customers / scale Research-stage; not productised vendor
- Deployment Self-hosted only — research code repo
- HQ Tokyo vendor
- Founders / pedigree David Ha (CEO; ex-Google Brain Research Director); Llion Jones (CTO; ex-Google co-author… vendor
- Code/weights release MIT — OSS vendor
- Optimised for autonomous ML-research-paper drafting vendor
- Pros One of the most-cited autonomous-science agents; David Ha + Llion Jones founders; OSS re… vendor
- Cons Quality of generated papers heavily disputed; humans-still-needed-everywhere caveats; no… vendor
- Project & sources sakana.ai/ai-scientist/ vendor
- architecture-deployment-locus local repo
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup agent-infra repo
- developer-activity-opendigger {"activity":2.98,"as_of":"2026-09","openrank_12mo":1.91,"openrank_current":0.32,"partici… third-party
- sdk-languages python repo
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)
- 2026-10-28
- License “MIT (Code OSS)” → “The AI Scientist Source Code License v1.0 (based on Responsible AI Source Code License; not OSI-approved)” source
- Funding / ownership “**Sakana AI: $214M Series A Sep-2024 ($1.5B val; NEA + Khosla + Lux Capital)**” → “Sakana AI: ¥32B (~$200M) Series B Nov-2025 (MUFG, Khosla Ventures and others); $214M Series A Sep-2024” source
- Deployment “OSS self-host” → “Self-hosted only — research code” source