Gemini 4: Release Date, Leaks, and What Google Has Actually Said

§ 01What we actually know#

§ 02What Google has said, word for word#

There are two texts, one day apart, and they are short.

July 21, Google DeepMind blog, in the post introducing Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite and 3.5 Flash Cyber: “Beyond today’s releases, Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently testing with partners and we plan to make it broadly available as soon as it’s ready. We have started our most ambitious pre-training run yet, for Gemini 4, and are excited by the progress.” (source)

July 22, Alphabet Q2 earnings call, Sundar Pichai’s prepared remarks as published by Google: “Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently in testing. We have started our most ambitious pre-training run yet, for Gemini 4, and are excited by the progress we are seeing at the frontier.” (source)

The analyst Q&A on the same call is where the tone changed. Asked whether Google could stay at the frontier, Pichai acknowledged “areas where we have acknowledged we need to improve. Coding and agentic coding is an example of that,” and then set the target: “We want to compete at the frontier level of where the frontier will be when Gemini 4 comes out, and so we are applying a lot of our compute and effort in that direction.” He added that “for the next generation of frontier, you’re going to need much larger base models,” and closed with “I’m confident that people will be pleased when we are putting it outside.” Those quotes are from 9to5Google’s account of the call and CRN’s interview coverage; Google’s published transcript carries the prepared remarks only.

That is the record. No date, no spec, no name beyond “Gemini 4.”

§ 03The rumor chain, dated#

The desktop app finding is the only hard artifact. On August 24 TestingCatalog reported that a Gemini desktop app update, alongside new Avatars and hints of app and plugin discovery, showed Google “preparing internally for Gemini 4.” A client being readied for a model is real evidence that a launch is planned. It says nothing about when, and TestingCatalog’s own “around December” is explicitly reasoned from “roughly six-month training cycles,” not from anything in the build. (source)

The benchmark leak is the weakest link. The August 12 post on X presents itself as a “Gemini 4 Pro Benchmark Leak”: better coding than earlier Gemini models, wins over GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Fable 5 on several internal evaluations, better tool use and long-running task execution, a 1.5 million token context window. It carries no evaluation files, no screenshots of a Google document, and no named source. Secondary outlets repeated the figures on August 19 while noting Google had verified none of them. We log it because it is what most “Gemini 4 benchmarks” searches lead to, and we grade it as rumor.

The benchmark sheet is a forecast wearing a leak’s clothes. On September 4 a chart spread on X showing Gemini 4 ahead of GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-5.6 Sol on seven benchmarks: 72.8% on Terminal-Bench Science 0.1, 48.7% on AutomationBench, 99.1% on FrontierMath Tier 4 v2, 62.3% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, 70.2% on HealthBench Professional, 98.6% on BenchCAD, “99.9%+” on ARC-AGI-3. Read the column header: under “Gemini 4” the image says “(PREDICTED)”. Then read the other three columns against OpenAI’s Astra launch page, published September 3: all twenty-one values match OpenAI’s own comparison table, including the dash where Anthropic reports no ARC-AGI-3 score. The author took a real vendor table, added a guessed column that beats every row by a few points, and the crop did the rest. One more caveat travels with the copied numbers: Astra’s 99.9% on ARC-AGI-3 is the score under a provider-adapter setup, per ARC Prize; the ordinary harness result is lower. Google has published no Gemini 4 number on any benchmark, and no one has produced a Google document that does.

The September rumor already failed. It arrived with the leak on August 12, pointing at late August or early September. By August 25 the outlet carrying it had published its own “speculation analysis” concluding there was no Gemini 4 endpoint, no developer listing and no evidence for the date. September 4 has come; Google shipped 3.8 Flash instead.

§ 04The Gemini 3.5 Pro question#

Every Gemini 4 rumor sits on top of a delayed flagship, and the two stories are hard to separate.

At Google I/O on May 19, Google said Gemini 3.5 Pro was already in internal use and would be “coming next month.” June passed. On July 16 Bloomberg reported, citing ten current and former employees, that the model was months behind schedule because Google was still trying to improve it, coding in particular. On July 21 Google’s language had softened to “testing with partners” and “as soon as it’s ready,” and the same paragraph introduced Gemini 4. On August 13 Bloomberg noted that Google shipped 3.7 Flash while the flagship was still delayed.

From there, some readers connected the dots: a flagship that keeps slipping, a next generation already training, a CEO saying the next frontier needs “much larger base models.” TestingCatalog wrote on August 24 that 3.5 Pro was “now canceled” and Google “may move directly to Gemini 4.” We could not find a Google statement that says either thing. The last official word on 3.5 Pro is July 21, and it says the model is coming. If Google skips it, that will be news, and this page will log it as such. Until then, “canceled” is an inference and we file it that way.

§ 05Why November or December keeps coming up#

Two reasons, and only one of them is about Gemini 4.

The first is generational rhythm. Gemini 1.0 arrived in December 2023, Gemini 2.0 in December 2024 and Gemini 3 in November 2025. A November or December Gemini 4 fits the pattern exactly, which is what 9to5Google meant by “based on past releases.” A pattern is not a plan, and Google broke its own with 3.5 Pro this summer.

The second is that Google is shipping faster than ever below the flagship, which makes the flagship gap more visible. Pichai has said Google is targeting “releasing models almost at a monthly cadence,” and the Flash line has kept that promise.

Three Flash models in six weeks is a company that can ship. It is also a company whose “most ambitious pre-training run yet” started in July, and pre-training runs of that size, followed by post-training and safety evaluation, are measured in months. That arithmetic, not any leak, is the honest basis for a late-2026 estimate.

§ 06What Google did ship this week#

The reference point for any Gemini 4 claim is the model Google actually released on September 2. Gemini 3.8 Flash is a drop-in successor to 3.7 Flash: the same 1 million token context window, the same output limit and thinking levels, and the same price, $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens, held through December 31, 2026. Google’s own table puts it ahead of 3.7 Flash on every published row, led by DeepSWE v1.1 (73.7% vs 65.3%), OSWorld-2.0 (59.0% vs 50.6%) and Terminal-bench 2.1 (89.4% vs 85.8%); those are vendor numbers, labeled as such. Our full record is on the launch post, and Google’s is here.

We moved our own Flash tiers to 3.8 Flash the day it existed, as we did with 3.7 Flash on August 13 and with Claude Fable 5.1 on September 1. The reason belongs in a Gemini 4 tracker: when a successor is a clean superset at the same price, waiting costs users capability for nothing. Whatever Gemini 4 turns out to be, the question we will ask on its launch day is the same one, and the answer lands on this page.

§ 07What we are watching for#

We route production work to Gemini every day, so this list is an operator’s, not a spectator’s.

• A date from Google. Any Google post, earnings remark or event agenda that names a month. The next scheduled chances are Gemini at Work on October 8 and Alphabet’s third-quarter earnings call, which third-party calendars place around October 28 but Alphabet has not yet announced.
• A model page or changelog line. The moment ai.google.dev lists any Gemini 4 identifier, this stops being a rumor page.
• An Arena checkpoint that holds up. Anonymous Google checkpoints have preceded every recent release. We will log one when testers can point at output, not a name.
• The fate of Gemini 3.5 Pro. A release, or an official skip, either way changes this page’s first table.
• Agentic coding. Pichai named it as the gap. If Gemini 4’s first published table leads with coding and computer-use benchmarks, the July acknowledgment will have been the roadmap.
• Our own routing. When Gemini 4 is real and better on our axes, our tiers move to it and this page records the day. If it is not, this page records that too.

§ 08The tracker#

This page updates when facts change, not when rumors get louder. As of September 4, 2026: Gemini 4 is confirmed in pre-training and nothing else is confirmed. No date, no variant, no spec, no benchmark, no price. The estimate we take most seriously is November or December, because it rests on Google’s release rhythm and on how long runs of this size take, not on a leak. When Google moves, the confirmed facts and a graded scorecard of the claims above land here the same day.

§ 09Update log#

This is a living page; when the story moves, the update lands here.

As of September 4, 2026: page opened. No official movement to log.