Nous Research, an open-source AI lab founded in 2023, launched the Hermes Index on October 6, 2026, a ranking of 14 frontier AI models evaluated on their performance as agents and their execution cost. Claude Opus 5.5 took the top spot with a score of 63.31 at an average cost of $4.99 per task, followed by GPT-6 Astra (56.25) whose average cost of $11.61 is more than double. One day after the launch, the lab announced a $90 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.5 billion, with Nvidia and Microsoft venture arm M12 among the backers. The index uses the Hermes Agent framework and evaluates models across 150 tasks in 25 categories, providing enterprises with a direct comparison between performance and cost at scale.
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