AI Timeline

OpenAI rolls out GPT-5.5-Cyber, a variant of GPT-5.5 tuned for cybersecurity workflows, in limited preview to vetted defenders. Launch partners include Cisco, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Cloudflare, Intel, Snyk, and SentinelOne. The model offers reduced classifier-based refusals for authorized red team and vulnerability research.

OpenAI ships GPT-5.5 Instant as the new default ChatGPT model, replacing GPT-5.4 Instant. The update tightens accuracy, cuts gratuitous emoji output, and rolls out to free, Plus, Pro, Business, and Edu tiers.

Google releases Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite in preview through the Gemini API and Vertex AI. Priced at $0.25 per million input and $1.50 per million output, with a 1M context window, the model targets high-volume workloads at half the cost of Gemini 3 Flash.

Amazon invests up to $25 billion in additional funding to Anthropic, bringing its total commitment to $33 billion. The deal includes over $100 billion in AWS infrastructure spending over the next decade.

DeepSeek releases V4 Pro (1.6T parameters, 49B active) and V4 Flash (284B total, 13B active) under the MIT license with native 1M context windows. V4 Pro scores 80.6% on SWE-bench Verified.

OpenAI launches GPT-5.5, its first fully retrained base model since GPT-4.5. Features 1M context, native omnimodal capabilities, and benchmark leadership at $5/$30 per million tokens.

Anthropic launches Claude Design as an Anthropic Labs research preview. It reads codebases, generates design systems, and hands off finished prototypes to Claude Code.

SpaceX acquires Elon Musk's xAI in a $250 billion deal, the largest acquisition in AI history. The merger brings Grok and the Colossus GPU cluster under SpaceX.

Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.7 with a 1 million token context window at flagship pricing and incremental gains across reasoning, code, and SWE-bench.

Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 4.6, a faster and more affordable model in the 4.6 family with strong coding and reasoning performance.

Anthropic releases Claude Opus 4.6 with extended thinking and a 1M context window option, setting new benchmarks across reasoning tasks.

Google launches Gemini 2.5 Pro with a native 1M token context window and improved multimodal reasoning capabilities.

Meta releases Llama 4 with Scout (10M context) and Maverick (1M context) variants, pushing open-source model capabilities forward.

OpenAI launches GPT-4.5 with a 256K context window and significantly improved creative writing and emotional intelligence.

xAI releases Grok 3 with strong reasoning performance, trained on the Colossus 200K GPU cluster.

DeepSeek releases V3, a powerful open-source model trained with a fraction of the compute used by competitors, sparking industry debate about efficiency.

Anthropic releases Claude 3.5 Haiku, a fast and affordable model that outperforms the original Claude 3 Opus on many benchmarks.

Anthropic ships an upgraded Claude 3.5 Sonnet with computer use capabilities and significant improvements in coding and tool use.

The European Union begins enforcing the AI Act, requiring risk assessments and transparency for high-risk AI systems deployed in EU markets.

OpenAI launches o1, a reasoning-focused model that uses chain-of-thought at inference time to solve complex math and coding problems.

Meta releases Llama 3.1 with a 405B parameter variant, the largest open-source model at the time, matching frontier closed models.

OpenAI launches GPT-4o Mini at $0.15 per million input tokens, dramatically undercutting existing pricing and pressuring the entire market.

Anthropic releases Claude 3.5 Sonnet, surpassing GPT-4o on most benchmarks while maintaining fast response times and lower costs.

OpenAI releases GPT-4o with native multimodal capabilities including real-time voice and vision, available free to all ChatGPT users.

Meta releases Llama 3 in 8B and 70B variants, establishing a new bar for open-source language model performance.

Anthropic launches the Claude 3 model family (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus) with vision capabilities and a 200K context window.

Google launches Gemini 1.5 Pro with a 1M token context window, a major leap in long-context processing for production use.

Google releases Gemini 2.0 Flash with native tool use and multimodal output, optimized for agentic workflows.

Mistral releases Large 2 with a 256K context window, strong multilingual support, and competitive pricing for enterprise use.

OpenAI closes a $6.6B funding round at a $157B valuation, making it the most valuable private AI company in the world.

The EU AI Act officially enters into force, establishing the world's first comprehensive legal framework for artificial intelligence regulation.

Amazon completes its $2.75B additional investment in Anthropic, bringing its total commitment to $4B and deepening the AWS partnership.