Google Deepmind’s Genie 4 puts a modern spin on agent designs that predate LLMs
Google — 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.Ad 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.Ad 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.Ad 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.
