Jagged Frontier
FrontierCore AI Concepts
The jagged frontier is the uneven capability boundary of modern foundation models, where a model executes extraordinarily complex analytical tasks with elite expertise while unexpectedly failing at simpler, adjacent operational ones. The term was coined in a Harvard Business School and Boston Consulting Group study. Navigating an uneven frontier requires rigorous task-by-task diligence rather than one blanket judgement about whether a model is capable.
In practice
Do not generalise from a single impressive demonstration: a model that drafts a board paper well may still fail at a routine data-entry step in the same process. Before automating a process, test each task in it separately, because the failures land where nobody thought to look.