Introduction to GLM 4.6 AIR

The wait for GLM 4.6 AIR is on, with many inquiring minds wanting to know if and when this model will be released. As seen on the Hugging Face discussion board, users are eagerly anticipating the next masterpiece from Z.ai.

Background on GLM Models

Zhipu AI has been making waves with its GLM models, particularly the GLM-4.5 and its variant, GLM-4.5-Air, which were released under permissive licenses, allowing for commercial and secondary development use.

GLM-4.6 Capabilities and Features

According to Unsloth Documentation, GLM-4.6 is the latest reasoning model from Z.ai, achieving state-of-the-art performance on coding and agent benchmarks while offering improved conversational chats. The full 355B parameter model requires 400GB of disk space, with the Unsloth Dynamic 2-bit GGUF reducing the size to 135GB.

Release Expectations and Delays

On October 7, 2025, the Z.ai account on Twitter/X stated that a 4.6 version of Air would be ready in two weeks. However, 15 days have passed since then, leaving the community wondering if the plans have changed. As Adham Khaled’s review on Medium highlights, the reception of GLM-4.6 has been overwhelmingly positive, marking a tipping point where open-source AI narrows the gap to proprietary AI at the cutting edge.

Open-Source and Commercial Availability

Zhipu AI’s decision to open-source GLM-4.x models under permissive licenses (MIT/Apache) has allowed for commercial and research use, contrasting with models from Anthropic and OpenAI. The base and chat weights of GLM-4.6 are publicly available on Hugging Face and other platforms.

Conclusion and Future Implications

The anticipation for GLM 4.6 AIR is a testament to the growing demand for advanced, open-source AI models that can rival proprietary giants. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, the release of GLM 4.6 AIR will likely have significant implications for the future of coding, agent tasks, and the open-source community.