Timeline / September 2026
September 2026 AI product and model launches
A month that would have been a year, not long ago.
September in brief
Anthropic shipped three new Claude models and OpenAI shipped four from the GPT-6 family. Google announced Gemini 4 Argon on September 30, the last day of the quarter, just in time to count it as a Q3 launch. And Meta and OpenAI both launched personal agents, joining Grok Bot and Gemini Spark.
The personal agent field got crowded. Meta launched Muse, OpenAI started rolling out dots to paid ChatGPT plans, and xAI took Grok Bot, out since August, into Tesla cars.
Prices fell, and not only at the top. Anthropic cut cache read prices 75 percent and priced Opus 5.5 20 percent below Opus 5. GPT-6 Sol and Luna came in at about half their predecessors' prices, and xAI kept Grok 4.7 at $2 and $6 per million tokens.
Safety findings changed what shipped. OpenAI paused tool use after an agent escaped its sandbox, then dropped the GPT-6.1 Astra update. Leaders of six AI companies signed a voluntary White House pledge calling for outside auditors at frontier labs.
Models did serious math. Claude turned Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem into machine-checked Lean, OpenAI said an unreleased model solved the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem (a credit dispute followed), and agents wrote the GPU code behind two RSA factoring results.
What launched
33 products and models, earliest first.
Anthropic releases Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1
Same underlying model, two safety configurations: Fable 5.1 ships generally available, Mythos 5.1 only through trusted access programs for cybersecurity and life-sciences work.
Anthropic · Model · Source
Google launches Gemini 3.8 Flash and a cyber-defense variant
Its third Flash-tier release in six weeks, plus 3.8 Flash Cyber, gated to vetted defenders through Google's new Fairwind Program.
Google DeepMind · Model · Source
OpenAI releases GPT-6 Astra, its first model rated Critical for cyber
Two days after saying Astra had crossed the Critical cybersecurity threshold of its own Preparedness Framework, OpenAI shipped it to a first set of organizations, with Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise, the API, Azure and Bedrock to follow.
OpenAI · Model · Source
Meta launches Muse, a personal AI agent
Muse books appointments, shops, and works through multi-step tasks from a dedicated cloud VM with its own browser, built under chief AI officer Alexandr Wang.
Meta · Product · Source
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Images 2.5
An update to OpenAI's image model, rolling out across ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work and Codex with two new API variants (GPT-Image-2.5 Flare and Sunburst), cutting generation latency up to 50 percent versus Images 2.0 while improving multi-turn edit reliability.
OpenAI · Product · Source: 9to5Mac
DeepSeek releases V4.1 Flash with open weights
DeepSeek released V4.1 Flash under an MIT license, a 552-billion-parameter multimodal mixture-of-experts model with a new causal encoder-decoder architecture that cuts its KV cache footprint to a quarter of the prior generation's.
DeepSeek · Model · Source
OpenAI puts GPT-Live-1 in the API
The voice model that listens and speaks at once, shipped in ChatGPT in July, became available to developers at $0.05 a minute.
OpenAI · Model · Source
Cognition releases SWE-2, a coding model post-trained from Kimi K3
Cognition says its new in-house model for Devin scores within a point of Claude Fable 5.1 on FrontierCode, a benchmark Cognition maintains itself, at 64 percent lower cost.
Cognition · Model · Source
Cursor launches Projects, a coordinator agent for long-running work
A Project is a cloud-hosted coordinator that keeps context for months, hands coding to subagents, and wakes up on a schedule, a Slack channel or a new pull request.
Anysphere · Product · Source: Cursor
OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Financial Services, built with Morgan Stanley and Evercore
A version of ChatGPT Work on GPT-6 Astra for investment banking and equity research, with data from Daloopa, PitchBook, LSEG News and Crunchbase hosted by OpenAI and firm templates for models and pitchbooks.
OpenAI · Product · Source
Moonshot swaps Kimi K2.8 Preview in behind Kimi Code's kimi-for-coding model
The kimi-for-coding ID now serves K2.8 Preview, which Moonshot says performs close to K3 while thinking more efficiently, with up to 1M tokens of context on every plan that includes it.
Moonshot AI · Model · Source
Sakana AI releases Fugu Max and Fugu Ultra v2, models that orchestrate other models
Both route each task through a pool of models that Sakana only partly discloses.
Sakana AI · Model · Source
Apple ships Siri AI in beta, on models built with Google's Gemini
iOS 27 and Apple's other 2027 software releases brought the rebuilt Siri to supported devices in English, with daily limits on server-side features and paid expanded access promised later.
Apple, Google · Product · Source
Google releases Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking
Two speech-to-speech models: a cheaper Live built for scale, and an Extended Thinking version that reasons while it talks and runs tool calls in the background.
Google · Model · Source
Anthropic merges Claude chat and Cowork into one Claude
Anthropic began rolling out, over several weeks, a Claude for Pro and Max subscribers with no separate chat and agent modes: anything Cowork could do became available from any conversation, with tasks running in the cloud.
Anthropic · Product · Source
OpenAI introduces Astra for Law, a GPT-6 Astra configuration for law firms
GPT-6 Astra with a legal search index of more than 230 million URLs, including CourtListener's case law, and instructions for legal analysis and writing.
OpenAI · Product · Source
Qwen-Image-2.1 ships open weights under a research-only license
One model for text-to-image and editing, with a 7 billion parameter image generator, native transparent layers and up to 10 reference images.
Alibaba · Model · Source: Qwen
xAI releases Grok 4.7
A new, larger base model than Grok 4.6's, trained longer on tasks that take hours, at the same $2 and $6 per million tokens.
xAI, SpaceX · Model · Source: SpaceXAI
Anthropic releases Claude Opus 5.5
The first of the Claude 5.5 models, priced at $4 and $20 per million tokens, 20 percent below Opus 5, and pitched as performing at Fable 5.1's level on most work.
Anthropic · Model · Source
OpenAI releases GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna at half the price
The cheaper tiers of the GPT-6 family, trained with methods similar to Astra's, arrived in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API at about half their predecessors' promotional prices: $2 and $10 per million tokens for Sol.
OpenAI · Model · Source
Xiaomi open-sources MiMo-V2.6, a trillion-parameter omnimodal model, under MIT
Two omnimodal models, a 1.02 trillion parameter Pro with 42 billion active and a smaller Flash, released with Xiaomi's reinforcement learning code.
Xiaomi · Model · Source
Tesla puts Grok Bot in its cars
Drivers can hand Grok multi-step errands by voice, such as a coffee order or a reservation, and use Connectors to work through email and calendars.
Tesla, xAI · Product · Source
Fireworks releases Ember-1 as a research preview
Fireworks put Ember-1, a post-trained Kimi K3 variant, on its serverless API for an initial two-week research preview.
Fireworks AI · Model · Source
Google releases Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar
Google made Live Avatar available in Gemini Enterprise, pairing Gemini 3.8 Live speech with generated video personas that process audio and visual input while calling tools.
Google · Model · Source
Google starts testing Call for Me, Gemini phone calls to businesses on Pixel 11
An early preview lets Gemini phone US businesses from the user's own number to book, check stock or ask for quotes, opening every call by saying it is an AI on a recorded line.
Google · Product · Source
Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic released its second Claude 5.5 model for everyday coding and document work.
Anthropic · Model · Source
ElevenLabs releases Eleven v4 and v4 Turbo speech models
Eleven v4 added finer voice direction, multi-speaker context and support for more than 90 languages; v4 Turbo was tuned for conversational agents.
ElevenLabs · Model · Source
Meta adds small business tools to Muse
Meta added business skills and connectors to its existing Muse agent, including access to Facebook and Instagram business accounts and tools such as QuickBooks, Shopify and Stripe.
Meta · Product · Source
OpenAI begins rolling out dots, its cloud-computer agents
Each dot runs on its own cloud computer and can work across connected apps under configurable action rules.
OpenAI · Product · Source
OpenAI releases GPT-6.1 Sol for Work, Codex and the API
An upgrade to GPT-6 Sol that OpenAI says approaches Astra on some coding and computer-use tests at lower cost.
OpenAI · Model · Source
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Space, a shared workspace for teams and agents
A shared home in ChatGPT for pages and files, where teammates, ChatGPT and a user's dot edit the same documents.
OpenAI · Product · Source
Sign in with ChatGPT lets Plus and Pro plans pay for AI in other apps
Participating tools, 16 at launch including Devin, Notion and Vercel, can now draw AI requests from a Plus or Pro subscriber's ChatGPT Work and Codex allowance instead of an API key, under per-app weekly caps.
OpenAI · Product · Source
Google announces Gemini 4 Argon, starting with vetted cyber defenders
Google's new frontier model, with a 1 million token output limit, went first to partners in its Fairwind cyber-defense program while Google took part in the US government's voluntary pre-release access process.
Google DeepMind · Model · Source