What's New
AI releases, explained.
Major launches and updates — without the hype.
Meta
Aug 2026
AI
Aug 2026
DeepSeek
Aug 2026
Z.ai confirms Ox Alpha is a new GLM-series model and will release its weights
Z.ai confirms Ox Alpha is a new GLM-series model and will release its weights
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Your Open Source Model Could Have a Hidden Time-Release Backdoor
Your Open Source Model Could Have a Hidden Time-Release Backdoor
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Launch HN: Vendo (YC S26) – Let users build features on top of your product
Launch HN: Vendo (YC S26) – Let users build features on top of your product
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Launch HN: OneCLI (YC S26) – OSS sandboxed agent harness for teams
Launch HN: OneCLI (YC S26) – OSS sandboxed agent harness for teams
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
The War Between Open Source, Open Weight, and Closed AI Models
The War Between Open Source, Open Weight, and Closed AI Models
Read moreOpenAI
Aug 2026
GPT 5.6 Sol is the best "vision" model OpenAI ever released
GPT 5.6 Sol is the best "vision" model OpenAI ever released
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Launch HN: Speko (YC S26) – OpenRouter for Voice AI
Launch HN: Speko (YC S26) – OpenRouter for Voice AI
Read more
Anthropic
Aug 2026
Anthropic
Aug 2026
I reverse-engineered Codex's web search for use with Claude, and any local model
I reverse-engineered Codex's web search for use with Claude, and any local model
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Launch HN: Discovered Materials (YC P26) – AI agents to discover new materials
Launch HN: Discovered Materials (YC P26) – AI agents to discover new materials
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Updated GPG Key for Signing Firefox and Thunderbird Releases
Updated GPG Key for Signing Firefox and Thunderbird Releases
Read moreOpenAI
Aug 2026
We're releasing a new model (GPT-5.6-Cyber)
We're releasing a new model (GPT-5.6-Cyber)
Read moreAlibaba
Aug 2026
Alibaba plans to charge big users of its next open-source AI model
Alibaba plans to charge big users of its next open-source AI model
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Launch HN: EdotEnv (YC S26) – Quant Trading RL Envs to Teach LLMs Research
Launch HN: EdotEnv (YC S26) – Quant Trading RL Envs to Teach LLMs Research
Read moreAI
Aug 2026
Launch HN: Hoplite (YC S26) – Effortlessly deploy cloud coding agents
Launch HN: Hoplite (YC S26) – Effortlessly deploy cloud coding agents
Read moreOpenAI
Jul 2026
OpenAI revenue in July topped all of Q2 driven by GPT-5.6 release
OpenAI revenue in July topped all of Q2 driven by GPT-5.6 release
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Launch HN: Tokenless (YC S26) – Automatic model switching to save money
Launch HN: Tokenless (YC S26) – Automatic model switching to save money
Read moreMoonshot AI
Jul 2026
Kimi K3 Now Available via Telnyx Inference API
Kimi K3 Now Available via Telnyx Inference API
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Cisco Antares: A New Family of Cheap, Open-Source, Compact Security AI Models
Cisco Antares: A New Family of Cheap, Open-Source, Compact Security AI Models
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Hugging Face says it resorted to a Chinese AI model
Hugging Face says it resorted to a Chinese AI model
Read more
Google DeepMind
Jul 2026
Moonshot AI
Jul 2026
US administration considering ban on Chinese open source AI models
US administration considering ban on Chinese open source AI models
Read moreAnthropic
Jul 2026
Claude Code now uses the new (unreleased) version of Bun (in Rust)
Claude Code now uses the new (unreleased) version of Bun (in Rust)
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Germany launched one of the best open-source AI models
Germany launched one of the best open-source AI models
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Launch HN: Coasty (YC S26) – An API for computer-use agents
Launch HN: Coasty (YC S26) – An API for computer-use agents
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Trump admin and industry groups discuss streamlining releases of US open models
Trump admin and industry groups discuss streamlining releases of US open models
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Launch HN: Agnost AI (YC S26) – Extract user feedback from agent conversations
Launch HN: Agnost AI (YC S26) – Extract user feedback from agent conversations
Read moreGoogle DeepMind
Jul 2026
Please don't discontinue Gemini 2.5 Flash
Please don't discontinue Gemini 2.5 Flash
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
China may restrict foreign access to Chinese open-source AI models
China may restrict foreign access to Chinese open-source AI models
Read moreAnthropic
Jul 2026
New serious vulnerabilities spiked around release of Claude Mythos Preview
New serious vulnerabilities spiked around release of Claude Mythos Preview
Read moreAI
Jul 2026
Launch HN: Context.dev (YC S26) – API to get structured data from any website
Launch HN: Context.dev (YC S26) – API to get structured data from any website
Read moreAI
Jun 2026
General-purpose large language models outperform specialized clinical AI
General-purpose large language models outperform specialized clinical AI
Read moreAnthropic
Jun 2026
Coding is solved: one guy reverse-engineered Claude Desktop for Linux via Claude
Coding is solved: one guy reverse-engineered Claude Desktop for Linux via Claude
Read moreAnthropic
Jun 2026
If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know
If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know
Read moreAnthropic
Jun 2026
OpenAI
Jun 2026
AI
Jun 2026
Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
Launch HN: Intuned (YC S22) – Build and run reliable browser automations as code
Read moreMeta
Apr 2026
Llama 4 Scout & Maverick. Meta's multimodal MoE models
Meta released two new open-weight models built on a Mixture-of-Experts architecture with native multimodal support — text and images in a single model. Scout has a 10 million token context window (the largest of any open model) and runs on a single server GPU. Maverick handles 1 million tokens and benchmarks alongside GPT-4o and Gemini Flash. Both are free to download.
Why it matters
The 10M context window in Scout is a genuine breakthrough for processing long documents, entire codebases, or extended conversations. Free and open-weight makes it accessible to anyone.
Google DeepMind
Apr 2026
Gemma 4. Google's most capable open model yet
Google released Gemma 4 as a family of four open-weight models (2B, 4B, 26B MoE, 31B Dense) under an Apache 2.0 licence — free for personal and commercial use. The 31B model ranks near the top of the open-model leaderboard, outperforming models many times its size on maths, science, and coding benchmarks. The smaller models are designed to run on phones and low-cost hardware.
Why it matters
Gemma 4 is the most powerful free, runnable model at its size. The 31B punches well above its weight, and the tiny models bring capable AI to devices without internet access.
Anthropic
Apr 2026
Claude Opus 4.6 & Sonnet 4.6
Anthropic's latest generation raises the bar on reasoning, coding, and long-document work. Opus 4.6 sits at the top of most benchmarks for complex tasks. Sonnet 4.6 is the everyday workhorse. Faster and more affordable while remaining highly capable.
Why it matters
The best all-round models for most professional workflows right now.
Anthropic
Nov 2025
Claude Opus 4.5. Built for long autonomous work
Anthropic released Opus 4.5 with a focus on sustained, autonomous task completion — it can work independently for extended sessions across coding, research, and document analysis without losing context. It added native integrations with Chrome and Excel, letting it operate directly inside a browser or spreadsheet. Benchmark scores placed it at the top of the coding leaderboard with 96.1% on SWE-bench.
Why it matters
Knowledge workers could now hand Claude a complex spreadsheet or live web session and have it work through the whole thing — not just answer questions about it.
Anthropic
Sep 2025
Claude Sonnet 4.5. Agentic mid-tier model
Sonnet 4.5 was Anthropic's upgrade targeted at long-horizon agentic tasks — coding, workplace automation, and multi-step computer use. It can maintain reliable operation across 30+ step task chains and self-correct far more consistently than previous versions. Anthropic positioned it as the go-to model for developers building autonomous assistants.
Why it matters
Users building AI tools for real business workflows got a model that could finish multi-step jobs without getting stuck and asking for help at every turn.
OpenAI
Sep 2025
Sora 2. AI video with audio and physics
OpenAI released Sora 2 with a standalone iOS app, adding synchronised audio — dialogue, sound effects, and ambient noise — for the first time. Physics consistency and motion quality improved dramatically over the original. A new 'Characters' feature allows a scanned real person to appear in any generated scene with accurate appearance and voice.
Why it matters
Sora 2 made short AI films with sound and realistic motion accessible from a phone, moving AI video from a novelty into a practical creative tool.
OpenAI
Aug 2025
GPT-5. OpenAI's unified reasoning model
GPT-5 was OpenAI's first model trained natively on multiple modalities from the ground up, rather than bolting capabilities together. It integrated deep step-by-step reasoning directly into the main ChatGPT interface, automatically routing easy questions for speed and hard ones for deeper thinking. OpenAI made GPT-5 free for all ChatGPT users, with higher usage on paid plans.
Why it matters
For the first time, free ChatGPT users got genuine multi-step reasoning without having to switch between 'standard' and 'thinking' modes — it just works.
Anthropic
May 2025
Claude Opus 4 & Sonnet 4. Top coding benchmark
Anthropic released two new flagship models simultaneously. Claude Opus 4 debuted as the top-ranked coding model on SWE-bench at 72.5%, capable of sustained multi-hour autonomous coding sessions. Both models introduced extended thinking with tool use — Claude can now reason step-by-step while simultaneously browsing the web or running code.
Why it matters
Claude became capable of tackling full software projects with far fewer errors — behaving more like a tireless expert collaborator than a Q&A tool.
Google DeepMind
May 2025
Veo 3. AI video with native synchronised audio
Announced at Google I/O 2025, Veo 3 became the first AI video model to generate synchronised audio alongside video natively — including character dialogue, sound effects, and ambient noise from a single text prompt. No separate audio step required. DeepMind described it as the end of the 'silent film era' for AI-generated video.
Why it matters
For creators, the jump from silent AI video to fully voiced, sound-designed clips from one prompt removes the biggest friction in AI video production.
Google DeepMind
May 2025
Gemini 2.5 Flash. Fast reasoning at low cost
Also unveiled at Google I/O, Gemini 2.5 Flash is a compact, fast 'thinking' model that reasons step-by-step before responding — the same approach as Pro, at a fraction of the cost. It targets applications where speed and affordability matter more than maximum capability: coding assistants, chatbots, and high-volume API use.
Why it matters
Developers building AI-powered products got a capable reasoning model they could afford to run at scale, not just in demos.
OpenAI
May 2025
OpenAI Codex. Autonomous software engineering agent
OpenAI launched a new version of Codex as a fully autonomous cloud-based coding agent — distinct from the older code-completion product of the same name. Powered by a version of o3 optimised for software tasks, it runs in an isolated sandbox, writes full features, fixes bugs, runs tests, and opens pull requests without a developer watching. Available initially to paid ChatGPT subscribers.
Why it matters
Non-developers could describe a change in plain English and have an AI handle the full technical implementation end-to-end — not just suggest snippets.
Moonshot AI
May 2025
Kimi K2. Moonshot AI's trillion-parameter open model
Chinese AI lab Moonshot AI released Kimi K2, an open-source Mixture-of-Experts model with approximately 1 trillion total parameters and 32 billion active. It posted top scores on LiveCodeBench and SWE-bench, outperforming GPT-4.1 and matching Claude Sonnet on coding tasks. The weights are freely available to download and run locally.
Why it matters
The first open-source model to seriously challenge frontier coding performance. Free weights mean developers can run a top-tier coding model without API costs.
Meta
Apr 2025
Llama 4. Meta's multimodal open-source model
Meta released Llama 4 with native multimodal capabilities. It handles text, images, and documents. Competitive with GPT-4o on benchmarks. Free to download and run locally, making frontier-level AI accessible without API costs.
Why it matters
The most capable open-source model to date. Runnable on decent hardware via Ollama.
OpenAI
Apr 2025
GPT-4.1. OpenAI's coding-focused release
OpenAI released GPT-4.1 with a focus on code generation, instruction-following, and long-context tasks. Outperforms GPT-4o on coding benchmarks and handles 1 million tokens of context.
Why it matters
Significant upgrade for developers using ChatGPT or the OpenAI API for code.
Google DeepMind
Mar 2025
Gemini 2.5 Pro. Google's reasoning model
Gemini 2.5 Pro topped multiple benchmarks on release with a 1-million-token context window and native reasoning mode. Particularly strong at maths, science, and multi-step analysis.
Why it matters
Competitive with o3 and Claude 3.7 on hard reasoning tasks. Available in Gemini Advanced.
xAI
Feb 2025
Grok 3. XAI's most powerful model yet
Elon Musk's xAI released Grok 3, trained on a 200,000 GPU cluster. Strong at reasoning and STEM. Includes a 'Think' mode for step-by-step reasoning. Integrated into X Premium+.
Why it matters
First Grok model to seriously compete with GPT-4o and Claude on general tasks.
OpenAI
Feb 2025
GPT-4.5. OpenAI's emotionally intelligent model
OpenAI described GPT-4.5 as their most 'human' model. Better at nuanced conversation, emotional intelligence, and understanding context beyond the literal words. Less focused on raw reasoning than o1.
Why it matters
Best ChatGPT model for writing, coaching, and conversational tasks.
Anthropic
Feb 2025
Claude 3.7 Sonnet. Extended Thinking
Claude 3.7 introduced 'Extended Thinking'. A reasoning mode where Claude works through problems step by step before responding, similar to OpenAI's o1. Dramatically improves performance on maths, coding, and complex analysis.
Why it matters
First Claude model with visible chain-of-thought reasoning. Major upgrade for hard problems.
DeepSeek
Jan 2025
DeepSeek R1. Open-source reasoning model
Chinese lab DeepSeek released R1, an open-source reasoning model that matched OpenAI's o1 on benchmarks. At a fraction of the training cost. The weights are free to download. Shocked the AI industry and briefly crashed Nvidia's stock price.
Why it matters
Proved frontier reasoning is achievable open-source. Free to run via Ollama.
DeepSeek
Dec 2024
DeepSeek V3. Challenges GPT-4o
DeepSeek released V3, a 671-billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts model trained for roughly $6 million. Compared to hundreds of millions for comparable Western models. Matched GPT-4o on most benchmarks.
Why it matters
The moment the AI world realised frontier models don't require frontier budgets.
OpenAI
Dec 2024
Sora. OpenAI's video model goes public
After a year of limited previews, OpenAI launched Sora publicly for ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers. Generates up to 20-second cinematic video clips from text or image prompts. Includes a Storyboard mode for longer narratives.
Why it matters
First time frontier-quality AI video became available to mainstream users.
OpenAI
Dec 2024
o3 & o3-mini. OpenAI's best reasoning models
OpenAI's o3 set new records on the ARC-AGI benchmark. A test designed to be difficult for AI. o3-mini offers a faster, cheaper version of the same reasoning approach. Both use extended internal reasoning before responding.
Why it matters
The most capable reasoning models available, especially for maths and science.
Google DeepMind
Dec 2024
Gemini 2.0 Flash. Fast and multimodal
Gemini 2.0 Flash launched as Google's fast, affordable frontier model with native multimodal output. It can generate text, images, and audio. Significant performance improvements over 1.5 Flash.
Why it matters
Best option for Gemini-powered apps that need speed and multimodal capability.
Anthropic
Nov 2024
Claude 3.5 Haiku. Fast and affordable
Anthropic released Claude 3.5 Haiku. Their fastest, most affordable model. Outperforms the previous Claude 3 Opus on most tasks at a fraction of the cost. Designed for high-volume applications where speed matters.
Why it matters
Best Claude model for tasks that need rapid iteration. Coding autocomplete, chat, search.
OpenAI
Oct 2024
o1 Pro. OpenAI's most powerful reasoning model
OpenAI expanded the o1 family with o1 Pro. Using more compute at inference to tackle harder problems. Available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers. Particularly strong at frontier-level maths, science, and complex coding challenges.
Why it matters
The first model to pass professional-level qualifying exams across multiple domains.
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