Reproducibility is probably the most basic and crucial requirement of materials science. AI is an efficient tool in materials research and development, but its application requires that we change the way we work and deal with data. Complete, uniform and reliable data sets are required that comply with the FAIR principles. These can be obtained by working across laboratories according to standard operating procedures ("handbooks"), which also include the analysis of benchmarks. Important elements for the gradual development of autonomous materials research, 10 in addition to technical progress in robotics, are the use of machine-readable handbooks, automated experiments with standardized data analysis and upload to local data infrastructures as well as the standardized publication of experimental data in overarching open repositories.