AI Timeline

A chronological record of major AI model releases, industry milestones, and pivotal events from 2024 to present.

2026
Mar 25, 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.6 Released

Anthropic

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

Model Release
Mar 15, 2026

Claude Opus 4.6 Released

Anthropic

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

Model Release
Mar 12, 2026

Gemini 2.5 Pro Released

Google

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

Model Release
Mar 5, 2026

Llama 4 Scout & Maverick Released

Meta

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

Open Source
Feb 27, 2026

GPT-4.5 Released

OpenAI

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

Model Release
Feb 14, 2026

Grok 3 Released

xAI

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

Model Release
Jan 20, 2026

DeepSeek V3 Released

DeepSeek

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

Open Source
2025
Oct 22, 2025

Claude 3.5 Haiku Released

Anthropic

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

Model Release
Oct 20, 2025

Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2 Released

Anthropic

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

Model Release
Oct 1, 2025

EU AI Act Enforcement Begins

EU

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

Policy
Sep 12, 2025

OpenAI o1 Released

OpenAI

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

Model Release
Jul 23, 2025

Llama 3.1 405B Released

Meta

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

Open Source
Jul 18, 2025

GPT-4o Mini Released

OpenAI

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

Pricing
Jun 20, 2025

Claude 3.5 Sonnet Released

Anthropic

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

Model Release
May 13, 2025

GPT-4o Released

OpenAI

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

Model Release
Apr 18, 2025

Llama 3 Released

Meta

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

Open Source
Mar 4, 2025

Claude 3 Family Released

Anthropic

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

Model Release
Feb 21, 2025

Gemini 1.5 Pro Released

Google

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

Model Release
Feb 15, 2025

Gemini 2.0 Flash Released

Google

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

Model Release
Jan 15, 2025

Mistral Large 2 Released

Mistral

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

Model Release
2024
Nov 6, 2024

OpenAI Valued at $157B

OpenAI

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

Acquisition
Aug 1, 2024

EU AI Act Enters Into Force

EU

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

Policy
Mar 28, 2024

Anthropic Raises $2.75B from Amazon

Anthropic

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

Acquisition
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