AI Models

Google’s Gemini 4 Argon goes to cyber defenders first

Google’s own tests put its new flagship first on 12 of 18 benchmarks. An independent index scores it level with GPT-6 Astra and behind Claude Opus 5.5, and there is no date for a wider release.

Google announced Gemini 4 Argon, its new flagship AI model, on September 30. For now it goes only to a group of trusted cyber defenders and to Google’s own teams, and Google gave no date for developers or consumers. Google says Argon leads its rivals on most of the tests it published. Artificial Analysis, which tests models independently, scores it level with OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra.

Why it matters

Google’s own tables show clear leads on office-style work and very long documents, but a mixed record on coding. The outside index puts Argon five points behind Claude Opus 5.5. Most people cannot try it yet, so its claims cannot be widely checked until Google releases it.

AI Models

Independent test puts GPT-6.1 Sol a point behind Astra

Artificial Analysis scores OpenAI’s new model 52, against 53 for GPT-6 Astra, at $0.72 per test task instead of $3.26. It is in Codex and ChatGPT Work now.

OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Sol on September 29, an upgrade to the GPT-6 Sol model it launched a week earlier. OpenAI says it nearly matches GPT-6 Astra at one-fifth of Astra’s token prices. The first independent test, by Artificial Analysis, broadly backs that: the model scores 52 on its index, one point behind Astra.

AI Models

Anthropic’s Sonnet 5.5 nears Opus at half the token price

Anthropic says it is over 30% faster than Sonnet 5 and cheaper per task. An independent test puts it just behind Opus 5.5, but found heavy token use at top effort.

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5.5 on September 28 at the same price as Sonnet 5. That is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, half the price of Opus 5.5. Anthropic says it scores close to Opus 5.5 on several tests. Artificial Analysis, an independent tester, ranks it two points behind Opus 5.5 but measured heavy token use at the highest effort setting.

AI Models

GPT-6 Astra and Claude Opus 5 cracked two Enigma messages

People directed both attempts. The expert who runs the message archive checked the results.

Two people used AI models to break German Army Enigma messages from 1941 that nobody had solved. GPT-6 Astra broke one that had resisted every attempt since 2005, and Claude Opus 5 broke another. Frode Weierud, who publishes the messages on his Crypto Cellar website, documented both breaks.

AI Models

AI pioneer Jürgen Schmidhuber joins Japan’s Sakana AI

He will help guide a new lab where AI works on improving AI.

Sakana AI said on September 24 that Jürgen Schmidhuber, who co-created the LSTM neural network, is joining as Chief Scientific Advisor while keeping his current positions. He will help guide the Tokyo startup’s new Recursive Self-Improvement Lab, which wants AI to redesign how AI is built.

AI Models

OpenAI is preparing GPT-6 Cyber, Fortune reports

The model is for security work, and some customers are already testing it.

Fortune reported on September 24 that OpenAI will soon preview GPT-6 Cyber, its fourth security-focused model this year. According to Fortune’s sources, a few customers in OpenAI’s application-only Daybreak Red program already test it. OpenAI has not confirmed the plan.

AI Models

Google’s Gemini 4 has entered post-training

DeepMind’s new chief wants an early version out as soon as possible.

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.

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Anthropic says Claude found a new enzyme system

It has CRISPR-like repeats, but what it does is still unknown.

Anthropic said on September 23 that Claude agents, searching huge DNA databases, spotted an overlooked enzyme system in viruses that infect bacteria. It has evenly spaced repeats like those in CRISPR. Anthropic’s own lab made a first test, but the work is not peer-reviewed.

AI Models

Google’s new Gemini voices can copy a person’s voice

That person must first read a consent line. No outside test has checked the safeguard.

Google released Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Flash-Lite TTS on September 23. The text-to-speech models speak more than 100 languages and cost about $0.54 to $0.81 per hour of audio until the end of the year. Both can clone a voice from a short sample after the voice’s owner records a consent statement.

AI Models

OpenAI’s GPT-6 Sol and Luna cut API prices in half

The first outside test finds them cheaper, not smarter.

OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna on September 22, two cheaper tiers below its top model, GPT-6 Astra. In the API, Sol costs $2 and Luna $0.10 per million input tokens, half of GPT-5.6’s current prices. Regular ChatGPT chats do not use them yet.

AI Models

OpenAI says a new model solved over 100 open maths problems

It has not named or published any of them yet.

In a September 21 post, OpenAI said an internal model in training since August 28 has solved more than 100 long-standing problems. It named none and published no proofs. It also set up an unpaid advisory group of nine leading mathematicians, hosted at the Institute for Advanced Study.

AI Models

Former OpenAI researchers launched Jev, a model that decides

It chooses instead of writing text. It costs $0.042 per million tokens.

TypeSafe AI launched Jev on September 15 with $40 million in seed funding led by DCVC. The model returns choices and probabilities instead of text. It charges $0.042 per million input tokens, and output is free.

AI Models

Jev returns a choice and a probability in under a second

How the model works inside is still a secret.

Jev reads a piece of text and answers questions whose possible answers the developer defines. It can pick an option, rate something on a scale, or give the chance that a statement is true. TypeSafe has not published the model’s design or size.

AI Models

Claude Opus 5.5 cuts token prices by 20%

It tops one independent index. Most other claims come from Anthropic.

Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on September 22 at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. It says the model matches its top Fable 5.1 on most work, and one independent index ranks it first.

AI Models

Salesforce built a reasoning model for CRM work

Its strongest results come from Salesforce tests.

Koa is based on Nvidia Nemotron and trained with synthetic business tasks. Salesforce says it makes fewer CRM action errors, but the benchmark and the customer pilots still need outside study.

AI Models

Gensyn made a small model whose training can be replayed

The speed cost is large.

Open-1b publishes checkpoints, data, code, and hashes for every training step. Gensyn says audits work across several kinds of hardware, while its reproducible runtime is about five times slower than an optimised system.

AI Models

DeepSky plans five sensors on each weather satellite

None of the new spacecraft is flying yet.

Tomorrow.io explained how its next satellite system would measure storms, wind, moisture, clouds, and rain. Better data could help AI forecasts, but the company has not published the final fleet size or real warning gains.

AI Models

AlphaGenome Atlas maps 9 billion DNA changes

A prediction is not a diagnosis.

Google DeepMind released a free research map of every possible one-letter change in the human genome. It can help scientists choose what to test, but laboratory and clinical proof still matter.

AI Models

GPT-6 Astra is now on Amazon Bedrock

Buyers should read the data rules first.

Amazon says companies can use Astra through Bedrock APIs and connect it to work tools. The service offers a large context window, but retention and permission settings still need review.