Exa Agent Ultra claims a 12.6% research lift

Exa says its new Agent Ultra research mode scores 12.6% higher than Claude Opus 5.5 on WANDR while costing half as much per task. The highest-effort tier coordinates agents across thousands of sources; Exa also reports a 213% WANDR advantage over GPT-6 Astra, using vendor-run comparisons and native harnesses. Builders buying research agents should benchmark cost per completed, evidence-backed list rather than trust a model leaderboard; Cato’s procurement review still shows why accountable approval survives automation.