American AI startup Poolside launches free, high-performing open model Laguna XS.2 for local agentic coding

The AI race lately has felt a bit like a game of tennis: first, Anthropic releases a new, pricey state-of-the-art proprietary model for general users (Claude Opus 4.7), then, a week or so later, its rival OpenAI volleys back with one of its own (GPT-5.5). And all the while, Chinese companies like DeepSeek and even Xiaomi are seeking to appeal to users by playing a different game: nearing the frontier, but with open licensing and far lower costs. So it's a big surprise when a new, affordable, highly performant open source contender from the U.S. emerges. Today, we got one from the smaller, lesser-known U.S. AI startup, Poolside, founded in San Francisco in 2023.The company launched its two new Laguna large language models, both of which offer affordable intelligence optimized for agentic wo