Google DeepMind releases Genie 4 world model, capable of generating interactive scenes with sound in real time
Google DeepMind launches Genie 4, the successor to Genie 3. It is its first real-time world model capable of directly generating sound, computing scenes frame by frame and responding to users' keyboard operations and text prompts. Gemini models handle planning in the background; for example, Gemini 3.8 Flash continuously observes the screen, breaks goals into steps, and checks the result of each step. DeepMind is also testing the use of Gemini 4 Argon to combine Genie with its robotics research Gemini Robotics; in a demo, it simulated the Apptronik humanoid robot Apollo playing chess. DeepMind says the model is still an early experimental version: visual details drift over long simulations, objects do not necessarily persist, and it is currently limited to select testers. All videos and audio tracks will carry a SynthID watermark.
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Genie 4 combines real-time audio-visual generation with Gemini's step-by-step planning, allowing readers to understand how world models can be used as simulated training environments for agents and robots.
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Genie 4 is supposed to simulate interactive worlds in real time, including sound and talking characters. Gemini models plan in the background what happens next in the simulation. Only select testers can try the world model for now.
Google Deepmind has introduced Genie 4 , the successor to Genie 3 , which the company showed in August 2025. The world model doesn't produce finished videos but calculates a scene frame by frame, reacting to input as it goes. Users move through the scene with the keyboard and steer events with text prompts.
According to Deepmind, Genie 4 is the company's first real-time world model that generates sound directly. The company says each world has its own background audio, such as wind in the trees. Genie 4 also handles dialogue, with characters that are supposed to talk to each other and react in real time to user input or events.
Deepmind sees the biggest gain in realism in how the model renders people. Characters are supposed to move naturally and react to their surroundings, and users should be able to control them directly.
Gemini models plan ahead to keep the world coherent
According to Deepmind, Genie 4 builds on capabilities of the video model Gemini Omni so the world looks and behaves realistically. Other Gemini models help plan the simulation to keep it consistent.
If a user changes the weather with a text prompt, Gemini is supposed to adapt the instruction to the running scene. Deepmind says Gemini also steers events between inputs so the world keeps developing in a way that makes sense.
Deepmind explains the process with multistep tasks. Gemini 3.8 Flash watches the scene continuously, breaks a goal into steps, and uses new frames to check whether each step worked. If the world changes or the user steps in, the model adjusts its plan.
Deepmind is also testing Gemini 4 Argon to tie its Genie work to its robotics research, Gemini Robotics. In one demo, Argon breaks the task of playing checkers into steps. Genie 4 gets these as text instructions and uses them to simulate Apptronik's humanoid robot Apollo playing the game, with no real robot involved.
Longer sessions still trip up the model
Deepmind calls Genie 4 an early, experimental model. According to the company, the world stays consistent over short sessions, but visual details can shift and objects don't always persist in longer simulations or after several complex prompt changes.
Deepmind says it's still researching complex physical interactions, accurate real-time sound, and readable text.
Google says all videos and audio tracks will carry its SynthID watermark, which invisibly marks AI-generated content.
Once they mature, world models could serve as training environments where robots and AI agents learn from simulated experience rather than just from data. Deepmind sees pairing Gemini with Genie as an early step toward hybrid world models that combine the reasoning of language and code models with pixel-level simulation.