Alphabet's Google is approaching the launch of Gemini 4, its next-generation flagship AI model. DeepMind head Koray Kavukcuoglu confirmed the model has entered the post-training phase for performance and safety refinement. This development signals Google's intent to intensify competition with OpenAI and Anthropic.
Google is accelerating its development schedule to release an early version of Gemini 4 well before the end of 2026. The company chose to bypass an incremental update to focus on this advanced model and close the competitive gap. Management plans to iterate on the model rapidly based on user feedback following its initial release.