Koray Kavukcuoglu, the new head of Google's DeepMind division, stated that the Gemini 4 AI model is currently in its refinement phase. The company intends to release the model "much earlier" than the end of the year, with an early post-training output planned for release as soon as possible due to promising internal results.
Google has not released a new flagship AI model since the Gemini 3 series in November 2025. During this period, competitors such as OpenAI launched GPT-6 and Anthropic released its Mythos series models, both of which reportedly outperform Gemini 3. This has created a lead for rival AI providers against Google.
A planned Gemini 3.5 Pro update, announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in May, was never rolled out. Kavukcuoglu explained that Google "took a little bit of a step back" to prioritize the introduction of faster, less powerful Flash models instead of releasing Gemini 3.5 Pro. This shift occurred after a leadership change at DeepMind, with former AI head Demis Hassabis stepping down in August.
Despite concerns about Google falling behind in AI development, Kavukcuoglu expressed confidence in the company's position. He stated that Google's intention is to "continue the fast-paced iterations" and that the company will "always gonna be at the frontier" of AI development.
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Google's DeepMind division, under new leadership, announced that its Gemini 4 AI model is in the refinement stage and is expected to launch "much earlier" than the end of the year. This release aims to address Google's lag in flagship AI models compared to competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic, which have launched newer models since Google's last major release in November 2025.