
IBM's new Granite 4.2 models ride the wave of interest in local LLMs
IBM has rolled out the newest models in its family of open-weight large language models designed to be downloaded and self-hosted. The newly launched Granite 4.2 comes in 3B, 8B, and 30B parameter variants. Like previous versions, IBM is taking a decoder-only approach here. These new releases offer a 128,000-token context window natively. The 8B and 30B variants (not the 3B one) also go through an agentic reinforcement learning block; they were trained for expanded capabilities like using the t
IBM has released new open-weight large language models called Granite 4.2 in three sizes that can be downloaded and run locally on personal computers rather than accessed through cloud services. The models are designed with features for enterprise use, including support for using external tools and a focus on reasoning capabilities that provide more rigorous responses, though often at the cost of slower speeds and higher computational demands. There has been growing interest in local models as cheaper alternatives to expensive cloud-based services, and organizations are increasingly using model routers to direct different tasks to appropriately sized models to balance performance, cost, and speed. IBM's approach emphasizes predictable deployments for enterprise customers rather than competing on speed or innovation, positioning these models as a practical solution within the expanding local AI deployment space.
One short email a day with the stories that matter. Free. Unsubscribe with one click.
Want to go deeper than the news? Explore live, cohort-based AI courses taught by practitioners.
Browse AI courses on Maven
Anthropic releases new Mythos and Fable models amid RSI concerns
Anthropic says the new models "show improvements in areas like coding, reasoning, and vision," as well as in communicating more clearly with users.
Also reported by The Verge, SiliconANGLE and MarkTechPost

Google Launches Gemini Decisions API With Gemini Decision 1 at $0.10/M Tokens
Google has launched the Gemini Decisions API, powered by a new model, Gemini Decision 1 (gemini-decision-1). The Gemini Decisions API does not generate text. It scores up to 1,000 typed questions against one shared input and returns calibrated probabilities. For developers, this targets the small branching calls inside agents: routing, policy checks, tool selection and grading. Google prices it at $0.10 per 1M input tokens, with zero output tokens billed. TL;DR Size: Context is 262,144 t
Also reported by SiliconANGLE

Google releases Gemini 4 Carbon with agent ‘swarm’ feature
Google is rolling out its latest AI model, Gemini 4 Carbon, to the general public after releasing it to a select group of "cybersecurity defenders" two weeks ago. Google claims Carbon is its "strongest model" yet, and capable of competing with the very best systems from Anthropic and OpenAI. Google says Gemini 4 Carbon "pushes the frontier even further" than Argon, referring to the company's other frontier model that launched only last month. The company said Argon will likely

Gemini 4 Carbon is now available
The latest version aims to deliver improved performance while reducing the computational resources and energy required for AI operations.
Introducing AlphaProof Code: a breakthrough in verifying complex software at depth
AlphaProof Code agents wrote three million lines of proofs in Lean to verify Signal’s core encryption.

NVIDIA launches GR00T 2 and Isaac Lab 3.0 at CoRL
A range of developers, including RLWRLD, Skild AI, and Flexion, are already using NVIDIA’s latest technology. | Source: NVIDIA NVIDIA Corp. today introduced GR00T 2, its updated open frontier world action model, and Isaac Lab 3.0, the latest version of its open-source robot learning framework. The company made these announcements at the Conference on Robot Learning, or CoRL, in Austin, Texas. NVIDIA also gave a look at how its partners, like Ambi Robotics, Bosch Research, Dexmate, Dyna Rob