The AI race is back on

Last week, Anthropic and OpenAI looked like they had the AI race to themselves, pulling ahead with increasingly powerful models that left their rivals in the dust. Google seemed hopelessly far behind, while Meta, despite spending billions to revive its floundering AI ambitions, had yet to establish itself as a serious contender. Even the latest models coming out of China, impressive as they were, appeared to be playing catch-up.

Then, in the space of a few days, everything changed. Google and Meta both unveiled frontier models they claim can go toe to toe with the best from OpenAI and Anthropic. Suddenly, the race is back on — and it’s anyone’s game.

Until this week, Google looked like it had permanently lost its place among the AI front-runners. Since releasing Gemini 3 late last year, the tech giant had delivered little more than incremental improvements. Gemini 3 was formidable when it launched, but its lead was fleeting, and it struggled to keep up with later offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic, or even some of the open-weight models emerging from China.

A series of internal shake-ups only added to the sense that Google was retreating from the AI frontier. Veteran executive Jeff Dean departed the company with a number of other AI researchers to launch a new startup. Demis Hassabis, the Nobel laureate who spent years at the helm of Google’s AI powerhouse DeepMind, stepped back from day-to-day leadership. Other AI-related teams were moved out of DeepMind and into Google proper. Together, the changes signaled a broader shift in Google’s AI center of gravity, moving away from London and toward California, fueling speculation the tech giant was beginning to prioritize commercializing AI over research.

Then, on Tuesday, Google upended that narrative with the release of Gemini 4 Argon, a new frontier model the company claims matches or beats flagship offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic on numerous benchmarks, whatever value benchmarks are still worth. What’s more, Google has priced Argon aggressively: Per token, it’s undercutting its rivals by as much as 80 percent during its introductory period, and is still significantly cheaper once that promotion ends.

Meta’s arrival was arguably even more dramatic. Unlike Google, which had long been the one to beat in AI thanks to its deep pockets and DeepMind, Meta had never really established itself as a serious contender at the frontier. It was not through lack of trying, but its models struggled to make a mark. Last year, the company embarked on an ambitious and expensive overhaul of its AI operations, spending billions on talent and infrastructure, including Scale AI and its cofounder Alexandr Wang. In April, its new Superintelligence Labs released its first major model, Muse Spark. Impressive, but not quite frontier.

That changed on Monday when Meta finally unveiled a model capable of competing with the industry’s very best. According to the company’s testing, Muse Wonder Full can compete with leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic, including GPT-6 Astra, Claude Opus 5.5, and Claude Fable 5.1, on numerous benchmarks. In other words, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has finally arrived at the AI frontier.

The return of Google — and the arrival of Meta — makes the AI competition considerably more dynamic and shows just how quickly the balance of power can shift in the AI world. Both have extraordinarily deep pockets and vast ecosystems of products used by billions of people, advantages that AI upstarts like OpenAI and Anthropic simply cannot match. The success of Meta’s Muse agent assistant illustrates that advantage. Its popularity in such a short period of time, and despite the growing list of security and privacy concerns, shows the power of having billions of users within ready reach. OpenAI, meanwhile, is having to work harder to establish an ecosystem of its own, positioning itself as an alternative to Meta.

All this comes as the AI race appears to be entering a new phase. The drive to develop ever more powerful models is becoming increasingly fraught. The growing array of safety concerns and rogue AI incidents means calls to slow development are growing louder. Open models are also getting better and better, making it harder for any one company to stay ahead for long.

If raw power and performance are no longer enough to stay ahead, Google and Meta have plenty of advantages not enjoyed by Anthropic and OpenAI. They may have spent a lot of time playing catch-up, but the past week shows it would be incredibly foolish to count either of them out.