Afternoon Brief, September 24th 2026
Google, OpenAI and Anthropic have approached a former White House AI adviser who argued against an AI regulator to run their proposed one. Google DeepMind says Gemini 4 could ship well before year-end. The White House reportedly wants American reviewers to test new models before British counterparts.
Google, OpenAI and Anthropic court a former regulation skeptic to run their safety body
The three labs have approached Sriram Krishnan to serve as chief executive of a proposed self-regulator tentatively called the Frontier AI Standards Agency, The Information reported Thursday. Krishnan left his post as the White House's senior AI policy adviser in June, saying "there will not be an FDA for AI" and warning that a centralized regulator would put "sand in the gears" of development.
The body would be industry-funded and would set shared testing and audit standards without government oversight, with the companies hoping to launch it by early 2027. No formal launch, membership structure or confirmed chief executive has been announced. Cohere chief executive Aidan Gomez has called the plan "a cartel by any other name," arguing that a body run by the largest labs would entrench their advantages and require a narrow waiver to operate. SourcesBB
Google says Gemini 4 has entered post-training, aiming to beat its own year-end target
Koray Kavukcuoglu, elevated to senior vice president of Google DeepMind last month, said at The Information's AI Agenda Live Summit that Gemini 4 has entered early and that Google hopes to release an early version "much earlier" than the end of 2026. He gave no firm date.
Google's last flagship, Gemini 3 Pro, shipped in November 2025, with a 3.1 update in February. A 3.5 Pro version announced for a June release at I/O never arrived, missing three internal deadlines along the way. An early post-training release is a preview, not the finished model, and Kavukcuoglu's timeline is a hope rather than a commitment. SourcesB
White House reportedly asks labs to delay British access to new models
The White House has asked OpenAI and Anthropic to withhold new models from British testers until a US review, Reuters reported Thursday, citing Politico. The reported purpose is to secure American systems before sharing the models with partners.
The request would put American review ahead of allied testing, potentially delaying the independent scrutiny that British evaluators can provide. Reuters attributes the account to Politico’s sources, a person familiar with the matter and a senior US administration official. The White House and both companies had not responded to Reuters’ requests for comment. The report does not establish a binding restriction, its duration or which models would be covered. SourcesB
LangSmith lets teams publish their own agent-review interfaces
LangChain launched Custom Apps inside LangSmith on Thursday, allowing teams to build interfaces over execution records, experiments and human feedback. Published apps run in the existing workspace, with hosting, authentication and permissions handled by LangSmith.
That removes a separate deployment from the work of building a specialized review tool. A subject expert could see the task, answer and scoring rubric while an engineer examines the underlying tool calls. The announcement’s availability section says Plus includes one app per organization and Enterprise includes unlimited apps. Those are product entitlements; the launch supplies no independent evidence that custom interfaces improve reviewers’ accuracy. SourcesA
Sources
- B Stocktwits: Google, OpenAI, Anthropic reportedly building their own AI safety watchdog, but without government oversight
- B The Globe and Mail: Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez criticizes calls for AI slowdown
- B 9to5Google: Google says Gemini 4 release is coming "as soon as possible"
- B Reuters: White House asks OpenAI, Anthropic to hold models from British testers, Politico reports
- A LangChain: Introducing LangSmith Custom Apps