The first ARC-AGI-3 milestone prize
The ARC Prize Foundation awarded its first milestone prize of $37.5K for submissions received through 30 June; the winners were small teams rather than frontier labs.
Why it matters
The first independent results on a benchmark where frontier models had stayed below one per cent came from outside teams.
The announcement is dated 6 July 2026. The $37.5K prize was awarded for submissions that ran through 30 June. First place went to Tufa Labs with an entry called The Duck, second to Reki, and third to Md Boktiar Mahbub Murad with forge. The second and final milestone prize ends on 30 September 2026. The post gives no numerical scores for the winners, so their results cannot be compared with model scores from this source. The competition page, opened on 15 October 2026, gives the key dates: 30 September 2026 ARC-AGI-3 Milestone #2, 2 November submissions due, 8 November papers due, 4 December 2026 results announced. The foundation's blog had no post about the second milestone prize that day (its newest post is dated 3 September 2026), so the record does not know its results.