Koray Kavukcuoglu, the new head of Google DeepMind, said this week that Gemini 4 has entered post-training. He wants to release an early version as soon as possible, “much earlier” than the end of the year. He gave no date, and safety testing is still under way.
New to this? Read it in simple words
- Google is getting its next big AI model, Gemini 4, ready.
- The model is now in post-training, one of the last stages before release.
- Google’s AI boss wants to release an early version as soon as possible.
- He gave no date. Until then, claims about how good it is come from Google.
- Post-training
- The stage after main training, when a model is tuned to follow instructions and behave safely.
- Google DeepMind
- Google’s AI research lab, which builds the Gemini models.
- AGI
- Artificial general intelligence: AI that can do most thinking tasks as well as people.
Where Gemini 4 stands
Kavukcuoglu said Gemini 4 is in post-training. That is the stage after a model’s main training, when it is tuned to follow instructions and behave safely.
Google is already using the model inside Antigravity, its AI coding tool, and safety testing is still going on, 9to5Google and The Decoder report.
He did not give a release date. 9to5Google wrote that “a specific timeline was not shared.”
No date yet. Safety testing is still under way.
As soon as possible
He said Google intends to release “an early post-training output” as soon as possible, “because we see the results and we are excited”.
He hopes to ship it “much earlier” than the end of the year. After release, Google plans to “continue the fast-paced iterations”, according to 9to5Google.
He also rejected the idea that Google has fallen behind. “It’s a certainty that we are always gonna be at the frontier,” he said.
A different tone at DeepMind
Hassabis has long described DeepMind’s goal as building artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Kavukcuoglu said the question of whether AGI has been reached “is not the right conversation”, The Decoder reports.
Some tech sites say Google’s current top models trail the newest ones from OpenAI and Anthropic. That is their own view, not Google’s, and none of them cited a shared benchmark.
Until Gemini 4 is out and tested by others, claims about how good it is come only from Google.
Sources
Every fact in this story comes from the sources below. Open them to check our work.
- 1
- 2Research · September 24, 2026Google says Gemini 4 release is coming ‘as soon as possible’ 9to5Google
- 3Research · September 24, 2026Deepmind was built to chase AGI, but its new chief just wants Gemini 4 out the door The Decoder
- 4Research · September 24, 2026Google Races to Launch Gemini 4 Early to Catch up with OpenAI and Anthropic Android Headlines
The Information hosted the interview, and its report is behind a paywall. We compared the quotes in 9to5Google and The Decoder, which match, and read Android Headlines. Google has published no official statement or release date.