Google Shares Rebound as DeepMind Chief Announces Nearing Launch of Gemini 4

Google's Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) shares steadied overnight after their worst drop in over a month, as DeepMind chief Koray Kavukcuoglu announced that Gemini 4 is nearing launch.

Kavukcuoglu stated that Gemini 4 has entered the early stages of post-training and is expected to roll out 'much earlier' than the end of the year. The model has already shown promising results, and the team is eager to refine it for reliability and performance.

The announcement comes as Google faces increasing competition in frontier AI from companies like Meta (which launched its Muse AI agent) and OpenAI (which unveiled GPT-6 Astra on September 3). Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also warned that AI could carry catastrophic consequences if poorly managed, urging governments to work with the industry on global standards.

The prospect of an earlier Gemini 4 launch gives investors a new data point to assess Google's response to the accelerating shift toward agentic AI. Retail sentiment for GOOGL improved over the past week and was 'extremely bullish' as of late Wednesday, with some traders viewing the competitive threat from Meta's Muse as overstated.