AI outperforms humans after 7 months of training: Fable 5.1 achieves 72% success rate for accounting roles

Beating AI Express (Insight): AI Agent startup NeoCognition has released ApprenticeBench, a benchmark specifically designed to test whether AI can learn a job independently like a new hire. The first version places an Agent at a simulated California construction company to handle accounts payable: it reads six months of historical bills, company manuals, and Odoo tutorials, then processes 100 bills over seven consecutive months, with rule changes and supervisor feedback occurring throughout. Results show Fable 5.1 achieved a 72% success rate, GPT-6 Astra hit 68%, while the best human test subject scored just 51%. The task includes invoice entry, error detection, cost code allocation, vendor outreach, approval routing, and learning internal company rules from historical records and feedback. Notably, the two models performed slightly better when directly operating the GUI than when calling APIs, largely eliminating the performance loss common in Computer Use scenarios. However, the "surpassing humans" finding is limited to this single simulated role, with only two human test samples. Cost is also higher: Fable 5.1 averages $18.23 per task, compared to ~$7.21 for humans. Humans grow faster over time, while Agents slow down as they accumulate more stored information.