AstaBrief 8B

AstaBrief is an AI model that turns a research question and supplied literature excerpts into a scientific report with citations. Ai2 released the 8-billion-parameter model on 2 October 2026. It powers the Fast option in Asta’s report generator and is available to download.

The report uses evidence supplied with the question

AstaBrief is based on Qwen3-8B and was trained for scientific report writing. Its model card provides the weights under Apache 2.0 and describes training with pairs of reports and preferences between them. The quality of the retrieved evidence remains part of the system’s performance.

Ai2 measured a 3.5-fold speed-up for the whole service

Ai2 reports an average 51.1 seconds per report in Asta Fast mode, compared with 178.5 seconds for its Claude-powered Thinking mode. That is about 3.5 times faster across the complete process, including the surrounding work. The figures come from Ai2’s own evaluation.

Most training and evaluation work was completed in 2025. The comparison therefore describes the models and setup used at that time. The release also includes training data and an example workflow for reports based on a user’s own PDFs. Readers should check that each citation supports the claim attached to it, especially when a report draws a broad conclusion from a narrow study.