Google wants Gemini 4 out ‘much earlier’ than the end of the year

Google wants to release Gemini 4 “much earlier” than the end of the year, said Koray Kavukcuoglu, who runs Google DeepMind. The model is now in post-training, the stage where engineers refine its behaviour and test its safety. Google is also trying it out inside its Antigravity coding tool.

Kavukcuoglu spoke on stage at The Information’s AI Agenda Live conference last week. It was his first media appearance since he took over Google DeepMind. He gave no release date.

“Our intention is to, like, as soon as possible, to release an early post-training output because we see the results and we are excited,” Kavukcuoglu told The Information.

The first big launch under a new boss

Demis Hassabis gave up the day-to-day running of Google DeepMind in an August reshuffle. Kavukcuoglu, the lab’s technology chief, took over, and Gemini 4 became his to deliver. Gemini’s two co-leads quit on the same day.

Asked whether Google had fallen behind, he said he had “the utmost trust in the team”.

“In my mind, it’s a certainty that we are always gonna be at the frontier,” he said.

Rivals shipped first

Google’s flagship has lagged its cheaper models this year. In July, reports said its next Gemini Pro was months behind schedule after coding results fell short of internal goals. By August, Google’s cheap Flash model was two versions ahead of the flagship.

Its rivals moved first. Anthropic launched Claude Opus 5.5 on 22 September. The same day, OpenAI cut GPT-6 prices in half with its Sol and Luna models.

Published September 28, 2026 – 11:25 am UTC

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