Practical Open Weights

The latest from POW

This edition pulls together what matters most right now for teams building with right-sized AI: better model selection, browser-native experiences, and a more practical read of the EU AI Act.

Published on April 29, 2026

Newsletter archive

If you're tracking how to match the right model to the right product surface, these are the three updates worth reading first.

Flagship Models

Granite 4.1 and Gemma 4 for real deployment tradeoffs

IBM released Granite 4.1 on April 29, 2026, shifting attention toward stronger dense models and a fresh set of deployment tradeoffs alongside the Gemma 4 family.

Explore the model families

Compliance

A new EU AI Act quick-check for product ideas

We added a lightweight compliance helper to the EU AI Act page. Describe a product idea and get a likely risk area plus the questions worth investigating next.

Try the quick-check

Browser AI

Private speech and browser inference without the server round-trip

Our browser AI guides continue to focus on speech, WebGPU, and local-first experiences that reduce latency and strengthen privacy.

Read the browser AI guides

Practical Open Weights continues to focus on deployable AI, smaller models with a clear job, and more honest product decisions. More updates are on the way soon.

See all the latest breakdowns