Gemini 4 is nearly ready, announces new Google DeepMind chief

Google appears to be edging closer to launching the next generation of its flagship artificial intelligence model, Gemini 4, after facing criticism for the slower pace of its major releases compared to industry rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

The news was confirmed by Koray Kavukcuoglu, recently installed as head of the Google DeepMind division, during his first public appearance since taking on the role. In an interview with The Information, he revealed that Gemini 4 is already in the refinement phase, the final stage before a commercial release.

A faster rollout than its predecessor

According to The Verge, which picked up remarks from the original interview, Kavukcuoglu stressed that the company's goal is for the new model to reach the market "much earlier" than was the case with the previous generation, Gemini 3. While he did not provide an exact release date, the executive suggested that development has entered an advanced stage, with teams now working on final performance and safety adjustments to the system.

Kavukcuoglu's appointment to lead DeepMind comes at a time when Google is facing mounting pressure to speed up its pace of AI innovation. The company has frequently been criticized for lagging behind competitors in publicly releasing its most advanced models, despite having considerable technological and research resources at its disposal.

The context of global AI competition

The Gemini series represents Google's answer to the large language models developed by OpenAI (the GPT series) and Anthropic (the Claude series), both of which have set an aggressive pace of updates in recent years. The announcement about the upcoming Gemini 4 launch suggests that Google is looking to regain ground in this race, banking on significant performance improvements over previous versions.

For now, Google has not officially confirmed a release date for Gemini 4, and technical details about the new model's exact capabilities remain undisclosed. The company is expected to share more information as the public unveiling draws nearer.