AI Engineering Now #001: AI Agents Are Being Tested on Real Work — The MKA Benchmark

AI Engineering Now #001

11 November 2026 | AI Engineering Update

AI Agents Are Being Tested on Real Work, Not Just Answers

Google and Artificial Analysis have introduced the Multimodal Knowledge Agent (MKA) Benchmark, designed to evaluate AI agents on complex, real-world professional tasks.

The benchmark includes 200 visually rich tasks across 10 industries, involving documents, diagrams, spreadsheets, and other professional files.

WHY IT MATTERS

AI Engineering is moving beyond evaluating whether AI produces convincing answers.

The real question is:

Can an AI agent complete a meaningful task and produce an accurate, verifiable work product?

This changes how AI engineers should think about agent evaluation, reliability, and practical performance.

TRY THIS

Give your AI agent a task involving a PDF and a spreadsheet.

Evaluate three things:

1. Accuracy: Are the extracted facts and calculations correct?

2. Completion: Did the agent accomplish the requested task?

3. Deliverable quality: Is the final output usable without extensive corrections?

ENGINEERING TAKEAWAY

Measure completed work, not just generated answers.

SOURCE — Google (10 November 2026)

Multimodal Knowledge Agent Benchmark

https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/multimodal-knowledge-agent-benchmark/

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