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DeepMind head says Gemini 4 will launch much earlier than year-end

By The Likely · Updated Sep 30, 7:02 AM ET · Drawn from 8 sources · Written by AI, checked against sources

Google DeepMind head Koray Kavukcuoglu said on September 23 that Gemini 4 has entered post-training refinement. Google aims to release an early output as soon as possible, targeting a full launch much earlier than the end of 2026.

How we got here

  1. Sundar Pichai announced that a major Gemini 3.5 Pro update was coming in June. Theverge, Google
  2. Google tested Gemini 3.5 Pro with partners and began pre-training Gemini 4. Google
  3. Koray Kavukcuoglu became head of Google DeepMind, while Demis Hassabis became the organization's chair. CNBC
  4. Koray Kavukcuoglu discussed Gemini 4's development and release intentions at an AI summit in San Francisco. Theverge, Theinformation
  5. Google aimed to launch Gemini 4 much earlier than the end of 2026. Theverge
  6. Google released Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Flash-Lite TTS without announcing Gemini 4. Dev

What's likely next

  1. Google gave no firm calendar date for Gemini 4; Kavukcuoglu said it wanted to release an early post-training output as soon as possible and launch much earlier than the end of 2026, followed by fast-paced iterations.
  2. Next Google Gemini Pro model releasedVery unlikely19%
  3. Next Google Gemini Pro model releasedVery unlikely19%

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