July 2026
5artifacts
AI Model & Benchmark Watch — July 31, 2026
Claude Opus 5 launched July 24 and immediately took #1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at half of Fable 5's price, Kimi K3's full 2.8-trillion-parameter weights shipped a day early as…
AI Model & Benchmark Watch — July 24, 2026
Google finally shipped something — Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and a government-only "Flash Cyber" — but still no Gemini 3.5 Pro, while the White House escalated its Kimi K3 fight with a direct…
AI Model & Benchmark Watch — July 17, 2026
Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 — 2.8 trillion parameters, the world's largest open-weight model ever — debuted on July 16 at #3 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index and seized the #1 spot on Arena's…
AI Model & Benchmark Watch — July 10, 2026
GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna went fully public on July 9, instantly seizing the #2 slot on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index and setting a new Terminal-Bench record — while OpenAI…
AI Model & Benchmark Watch — July 8, 2026
xAI launched Grok 4.5 today as its first self-described "Opus-class" model, GPT-5.6 Sol broke the Terminal-Bench record and sits one government approval away from broad release, and open-weight…