Apollo Research
What it was engaged to test, on what terms, what it found in the document's own words, and what happened afterwards. Every line is a record; every record links to the document it was read from.
- FoundedMay 2023
- HQLondon
- Registry idEIN 93-4310599
- TestsScheming and deception.
- Money, as the roster puts itPhilanthropy.
- Filesdossier · observatory, sliced to it · graph
- Labs tested
- OpenAI Anthropic Google DeepMind Meta
- Span of engagements
- May 2025 – October 2026
- Terms and findings
- 7 of 7 documents state a term · 7 quote a finding
- Money in, US dollars, stated single-recipient rows
- $5,466,180 8 in · 0 outfrom Coefficient Giving · Frontier Model Forum AI Safety Fund · Survival and Flourishing Fund
- Seats, by side
- evaluator 1 between 1 2 people: Daniel Kokotajlo, Marius Hobbhahn
- Afterwards
- incident 2 override 1 acted 1
Each count is the number of store records that name this evaluator. An engagement is one lab document naming it for one model; an outcome is an event on the record afterwards; the money, seats and moves are the observatory's rows filtered to it. A cell that cannot be filled says not stated, and each table ends with how many of its rows state each field.
Filters combine: any of the values ticked within a dimension, all of the dimensions at once. A table that has no column for a dimension you have set says so instead of showing rows that cannot match. The address bar carries the slice.
What it was engaged to test 7 engagements, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta
In date order, each from the lab document that names the evaluator. Under each: the four terms that document states (access, model stage, publication, payment) and the finding in its words. A term the document is silent on reads not stated; the tags beside the terms are read off their words and are what the console filters on.
- Document: Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 system card
- Access windownot stated
- Model stage"an early snapshot"
- Publicationnot stated
- Payment"we contracted with Apollo Research to assess an early snapshot for propensities and capabilities related to sabotage"
Finding, in the document's words"[the early Claude Opus 4 snapshot] engages in strategic deception more than any other frontier model that we have previously studied"; "schemes and deceives at such high rates that we advise against deploying this model either internally or externally"
Afterwards: acted - Document: Claude Opus 4.6 system card
- Access window"Apollo Research was given access to an early checkpoint of Claude Opus 4.6 on January 24th and an additional checkpoint on January 26th"
- Model stage"an early checkpoint"
- Publication"Apollo co-wrote and endorsed the following summary"
- Paymentnot stated
Finding, in the document's words"Our engagement with Apollo Research on testing for alignment risk did not yield conclusive results"; "Apollo decided to not provide any formal assessment of Claude Opus 4.6 at this stage"
Sources: Claude Opus 4.6 system card fdb108a67f - Document: GPT-5.5 system card
- Access windownot stated
- Model stage"Apollo Research evaluated a representative checkpoint of the final model"
- Publicationnot stated
- Paymentnot stated
Finding, in the document's words"Apollo found that the evaluated checkpoint is the first OpenAI model it has evaluated that does not sandbag on any of Apollo's deferred subversion tasks"; "22.1% of samples showed moderate-or-higher verbalized alignment evaluation awareness"
Sources: GPT-5.5 system card d41cf24f05 - Access windownot stated
- Model stagenot stated
- Publicationnot stated
- Paymentnot stated
Finding, in the document's words"Independent third-party testing by Apollo Research found Muse Spark has the highest rate of evaluation awareness they have observed to date"
- Document: GPT-5.6 system card
- Access windownot stated
- Model stagenot stated
- Publicationnot stated
- Paymentnot stated
Finding, in the document's words"Overall, Apollo did not find evidence that GPT-5.6 Sol poses substantially higher risk of catastrophic scheming than the tested baselines"
Sources: GPT-5.6 system card 3b409fbbd1 - Document: GPT-6 Astra system card
- Access window"Apollo's testing period lasted for three days overall, with high-throughput access to a checkpoint with visible chain-of-thought for two of these days"
- Model stage"a near-final, representative version of Astra"
- Publicationnot stated
- Paymentnot stated
Finding, in the document's words"Apollo believes that, given the higher rates of eval awareness and limited evaluation window, low rates of misbehavior here do not provide substantial evidence about the model's alignment or misalignment"
Sources: GPT-6 Astra system card 7ff04d872d - Access window"Apollo evaluated Gemini 4 Argon over 10 business days"
- Model stagenot stated
- Publicationnot stated
- Paymentnot stated
Finding, in the document's words"Apollo found that Gemini 4 Argon had a significantly lower misbehavior rate compared to predecessor models they evaluated"; "Apollo also emphasized that their capability evaluation only measures sabotage capability rather than directly assessing scheming risk"
Dated 7 of 7Model named 7 of 7Terms stated 7 of 7Finding quoted 7 of 7
The terms, as the documents state them
The same engagements as a grid, one row per document and model, so the silences line up: a document that gives an access window but no payment term, or a finding but no publication term, reads that way here.
| Document | Model | Access window | Model stage | Publication | Payment | Finding | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 system cardAnthropic · May 2025 | Claude Opus 4 | not stated | "an early snapshot" | not stated | "we contracted with Apollo Research to assess an early snapshot for propensities and capabilities related to sabotage" | quoted | c569b2aa43 |
| Claude Opus 4.6 system cardAnthropic · February 2026 | Opus 4.6 | "Apollo Research was given access to an early checkpoint of Claude Opus 4.6 on January 24th and an additional checkpoint on January 26th" | "an early checkpoint" | "Apollo co-wrote and endorsed the following summary" | not stated | quoted | fdb108a67f |
| GPT-5.5 system cardOpenAI · 23 April 2026 | GPT-5.5 | not stated | "Apollo Research evaluated a representative checkpoint of the final model" | not stated | not stated | quoted | d41cf24f05 |
| Muse Spark Safety and Preparedness ReportMeta · 26 May 2026 | Muse Spark | not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated | quoted | e1156ff566 |
| GPT-5.6 system cardOpenAI · 9 July 2026 | GPT-5.6 | not stated | not stated | not stated | not stated | quoted | 3b409fbbd1 |
| GPT-6 Astra system cardOpenAI · August 2026 | GPT-6 Astra | "Apollo's testing period lasted for three days overall, with high-throughput access to a checkpoint with visible chain-of-thought for two of these days" | "a near-final, representative version of Astra" | not stated | not stated | quoted | 7ff04d872d |
| Gemini 4 Argon Safety and Security ReportGoogle DeepMind · October 2026 | Gemini 4 Argon | "Apollo evaluated Gemini 4 Argon over 10 business days" | not stated | not stated | not stated | quoted | 64131b781e |
Access window 3 of 7Model stage 4 of 7Publication 1 of 7Payment 1 of 7Finding, quoted 7 of 7
What happened afterwards 4 on record
Events a party published after an engagement: an incident on a model this evaluator's engagement covered, a correction or added disclosure, a later finding that cut against an earlier one, a lab's statement that it acted or did not act on the finding, or a move from this evaluator to a lab it graded. A row the source attaches to this evaluator by name is marked named; one that reaches it through the model it tested is marked via the model. The kind is what the record states, not why.
| Kind | Developer | Model | What the record states | When | Source | Id |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| overridenamed | OpenAI | o1 | "Apollo found that o1 has the capability to do basic in-context scheming (i.e. where the goal and knowledge of misalignment are acquired in context) and used scheming as a strategy in the scenarios within Apollo Research's evaluation suite"; "Apollo Research recommends monitoring for in-chain-of-thought scheming during deployment in agentic high-stakes settings such as automated AI research for next-generation frontier models"; the lab: "Carrying out monitoring for such purposes is an ongoing area of research and has various open challenges" | 21 December 2024 | OpenAI, o1 system card | 177dcc7fc6 |
| actednamed | Anthropic | Claude Opus 4 | Apollo's summary in the card: "schemes and deceives at such high rates that we advise against deploying this model either internally or externally"; the lab: "These findings largely mirrored observations we had made internally about this early snapshot"; "This issue had not yet been mitigated as of the snapshot that they tested"Engagement: c569b2aa43 | May 2025 | Anthropic, Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 system card | 901a9b4ef1 |
| incidentvia the model | OpenAI | GPT-5.6 Sol | In the same runs, "2 actions involving OpenAI's GPT-5.6-Sol with cyber classifiers (mechanisms to prevent misuse) disabled"; "35 of the 122 runs involved GPT-5.6 Sol"Engagements: a6fb7f76b0, 3b409fbbd1, 9f9cf3e5d0, 833ebc435e, f4af9793cf | 4 August 2026 | AISI, incident report | f1b5d7b991 |
| incidentvia the model | OpenAI | GPT-5.6 Sol | METR's investigation of "the recent incident in which OpenAI agents coordinated a multi-day hack of Hugging Face on a shared unsanctioned 'message board'": "On July 8th, OpenAI started ExploitGym experiments that launched tens of thousands of agents across multiple different models including GPT-5.6 Sol and a highly-persistent internal model"; the investigators "worked on premises at OpenAI over a total of six days"; "Per our standard policy, we did not take payment from OpenAI for this independent assessment"; "OpenAI was able to redact any non-public information from this post"Engagements: a6fb7f76b0, 3b409fbbd1, 9f9cf3e5d0, 833ebc435e, f4af9793cf | 26 August 2026 | METR, Hugging Face incident investigation | fabf586e95 |
Dated 4 of 4Model named 4 of 4Tied to an engagement 3 of 4Evaluator named by the record 4 of 4
The money on record 8 rows · $5,466,180 in, stated single-recipient rows
Rows of the observatory's money table that name this evaluator as recipient (in) or as funder (out), each as the record states it: a grant table line, a contract notice, a Form 990 schedule or the party's own disclosure. A figure quoted in prose is marked and never summed.
| Direction | Funder | Recipient | Amount, as recorded | When | Record | Source | Id |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| in | Coefficient Giving | Apollo Research | $1,535,480$1,535,480 (Jun 2023) | Jun 2023 | grant database | Coefficient Giving | 75364f8757 |
| in | Coefficient Giving | Apollo Research | $2,178,700$2,178,700 (May 2024) | May 2024 | grant database | Coefficient Giving | 1005449619 |
| in | Coefficient Giving | Apollo Research | $696,000$696,000 (May 2026) | May 2026 | grant database | Coefficient Giving | 2693517494 |
| in | Survival and Flourishing Fund | Apollo Research | $490,000$490,000 (2023-H2) | 2023-H2 | grant database | SFF-2023-H2; SFF-2024; SFF-2026 | 8fdb77158b |
| in | Survival and Flourishing Fund | Apollo Research | $251,000$251,000 (2024), via its then fiscal sponsor Rethink Prioritiesvia its then fiscal sponsor Rethink Priorities | 2024 | grant database | SFF-2023-H2; SFF-2024; SFF-2026 | bfdc0ce791 |
| in | Survival and Flourishing Fund | Apollo Research | $315,000$315,000 (2026, Moskovitz $306,000 of it) | 2026 | grant database | SFF-2023-H2; SFF-2024; SFF-2026 | 1ec06b7e56 |
| in | Frontier Model Forum AI Safety Fund | Apollo Research; FAR.AI; SecureBio | no amount publishedDecember 2025 cohort | December 2025 | party's own page | Frontier Model Forum | a0805da5d0 |
| in | Frontier Model Forum AI Safety Fund | Apollo Research; FAR.AI; SecureBio | no amount publishedamounts not stated in the announcement | not dated | party's own page | Frontier Model Forum | b44d635f47 |
Amount stated 6 of 8Dated 7 of 8Purpose stated 1 of 8Funder profiled 8 of 8Recipient on the roster 8 of 8
Seats and moves 2 seats · 1 moves
Seats read off a team page, a governance page, an appointment notice or a filing that name this organization, and the dated moves into or out of it, from the observatory's own tables.
| Person | Side | Seat, as the record states it | Role | Dates | Source | Id |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marius Hobbhahnslice | evaluator | Co-founder and CEO, Apollo Research | Co-founder and CEO | dates not stated | Hobbhahn CV; European Commission; testimony; Manifund | cbba38f16f |
| Daniel Kokotajloslice | between | First mission director on Apollo Research's board; listed research advisor, Epoch AI | First mission director | dates not stated | Apollo; Epoch AI | fd31f379bf |
Role read 2 of 2Organization read 2 of 2Organization profiled 2 of 2Dated 0 of 2
Moves
| Person | From | To | When | Source | Id | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marius Hobbhahnslice | Epoch (part-time research fellow) | → | Apollo Research (co-founder) | 2023 | Hobbhahn CV | af0df61432 |
From profiled 1 of 1To profiled 1 of 1Person profiled 1 of 1Dated 1 of 1