Stress-testing large language model agents in a robotic chemistry laboratory

Abstract

AI is evaluated through knowledge, reasoning and plan generation, yet scientific agency requires reliable physical action and adaptation to evidence. Here, we use a robotic chemistry laboratory as a physical-world testbed to make scientific agency measurable. Its 45 modular workstations exposed as machine-readable skills enabled 4,608 trials. Only 3.3% of trials produced expert-assessed executable workflows under laboratory constraints; even the best system achieved 28.1%. Long-horizon planning remained a challenge: only three executable workflows exceeded 30 operations, although the longest contained 44. Across five rounds, experimental feedback prompted local adjustments but no workflow-level replanning or analytical-method redesign. By making physical executability and evidence-driven replanning measurable, our study provides an evidence-based assessment of deployment readiness and a diagnostic framework to guide closed-loop improvements towards physically grounded autonomous research.