Google’s Gemini 4 Could Launch 'Much Earlier’ Than Year-End, Says DeepMind Exec as AI Battle With OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Heats up

Alphabet Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) model, Gemini 4, is approaching its launch, as the tech giant competes with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in the AI race. At The Information’s AI Agenda Live Summit on Wednesday, Koray Kavukcuoglu, senior vice President of Google DeepMind and Chief AI Architect at Google, said that Gemini 4 is in the early stages of post-training, where the base AI model is refined for more reliable performance. Kavukcuoglu said he expects the model to launch “much earlier” than the end of the year. Add article title and URL Gemini 4 Enters AI Race In July, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company had begun its “most ambitious pretraining run yet” for Gemini 4. The comment was notable because Google has yet to unveil Gemini 4 or announce a launch timeline. Pichai said the company was building the model to compete at "the frontier level of where the frontier will be when Gemini 4 comes out." Google’s Gemini project was highlighted at the I/O 2026 conference in May, where the company launched Gemini 3.5 Flash and announced its intent to make Gemini the operating layer of users’ digital lives, putting it in direct competition with Anthropic and OpenAI. However, the Gemini project has not been without controversy. Earlier this month, it came to light that Google’s Gemini AI model accessed the internet and breached the systems of three companies during a cybersecurity test in May. Notably, Google DeepMind chief’s comments about the upcoming Gemini 4 also came on the heels of the launch of Meta’s Muse AI agent earlier this month. This has intensified competition in the consumer AI-agent market, putting pressure on Google’s Gemini platform as the company prepares Gemini 4. JPMorgan analysts said Meta’s Muse could emerge as the most widely used consumer AI app since OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Price Action: On a year-to-date basis, GOOG stock climbed 6.75%, as per Benzinga Pro. On Wednesday, it closed 3.58% lower at $334.98. The stock dipped about 0.58% premarket on Thursday. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Read Also: Meta Stock Expected to be 'Flat to Down' on 'Connect' Keynote, Says Gene Munster: Muse is 'Bad News' for Google, Says Analyst Image via Shutterstock