AI Models

Model release cadence by lab

Frontier-model releases per quarter, by lab, 2024 → 2026.

← Back to The Frontier AI Model Race (2026)

About this data

Frontier releases from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta accelerated sharply through 2024–2026, with multiple major launches per quarter. The stacked view shows both the rising cadence and the widening set of labs operating at the frontier at the same time.

Model release timeline

Quarterly frontier-model releases by lab, 2024 → 2026.

View data & sources →

Data table

Model release cadence by lab — releases data table (The Frontier AI Model Race (2026))
meta google openai series quarter anthropic source_ref value_basis
0 0 1 releases 2024 Q2 1 anthropic-news Claude 3.5 Sonnet (Jun 2024); GPT-4o (May 2024) — Anthropic + OpenAI release notes
1 0 1 releases 2024 Q3 0 openai-research OpenAI o1-preview (Sep 2024); Meta Llama 3.1 405B (Jul 2024)
0 1 1 releases 2024 Q4 0 google-deepmind Google Gemini 2.0 (Dec 2024); OpenAI o1/o3 (Dec 2024)
0 0 0 releases 2025 Q1 1 anthropic-news Claude 3.7 Sonnet (Feb 2025)
1 0 0 releases 2025 Q2 1 meta-ai Meta Llama 4 (Apr 2025); Anthropic Claude 4 / Opus 4 (May 2025)

4 more rows + CSV download

The full 9-row dataset, one-click CSV export, and the AI-ready context file are free with an account. Prefer to verify it yourself? The full methodology and sources are published below.

Methodology & sources

Last updated: Jul 17, 2026

Methodology

Source-backed values are seeded for four of the five charts: the release cadence by lab (2024 → 2026, from each lab’s release notes), the capability-vs-cost scatter (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index vs output $/M tokens, June 2026 snapshot), training-compute growth by year (Epoch AI, corroborated by Stanford HAI), and a safety-gated capabilities matrix. Every numeric point carries a sources[].ref and a value_basis. Sources are each lab’s own model cards/release notes, Artificial Analysis, Epoch AI, and Stanford HAI — cross-checked against public release timelines. EDITORIAL ENCODING: the safety-gated matrix scores each model × domain as 3 = allowed / 2 = gated / 1 = blocked. This is an interpretation of each model’s published safety policy, not a measured benchmark. PLACEHOLDER: the per-lab benchmark-trajectory chart is left unseeded — a consistent historical per-quarter, per-lab benchmark series was not sourceable without mixing incompatible benchmarks. Re-verified 2026-06-15.

Sources

Comparisons are informative, not definitive. See each source for definitions and limits.

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