Model release cadence by lab
Frontier-model releases per quarter, by lab, 2024 → 2026.
- Evidence Brief
- The Frontier AI Model Race (2026)
- Data as of
- June 2026
- Basis
- See row-level value basis below
- Gaps
- Nulls remain null; none are interpolated
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.
Cadence is bursty; leadership rotates rather than compounding at one lab.
- Data as of June 2026
- Source Official body or company filing
Model release cadence by lab
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 cadence by lab
Rendering the interactive chart…
Data table
| meta | 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) |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | releases | 2025 Q3 | 0 | openai-research | OpenAI GPT-5 (Aug 2025) |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | releases | 2025 Q4 | 0 | google-deepmind | Google Gemini 3.0 family (Nov–Dec 2025) |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | releases | 2026 Q1 | 1 | anthropic-news | Topics_Content/07_New_Trending_Topics_2026.md §1.2 — Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Feb 17 2026) |
| 0 | 1 | 1 | releases | 2026 Q2 | 2 | anthropic-news | Topics_Content/07_New_Trending_Topics_2026.md §1.2 — Claude Opus 4.8 (May 28) + Fable 5 (Jun 9); GPT-5.5 (Apr 2026); Gemini 3.1 |
Methodology & sources
Last updated: Sep 10, 2026Methodology
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
- Anthropic Model Cards & Release Notes ↗Publicly available
- OpenAI Research Blog ↗Publicly available
- Google DeepMind Research ↗Publicly available
- Meta AI — Llama release notes ↗Publicly available
Comparisons are informative, not definitive. See each source for definitions and limits.