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

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…