Two and a half years ago, we started Generative AI Turkey as a small group of builders, researchers, and founders who believed Turkey could play a significant role in the global AI wave. As we enter 2026, it is worth taking stock of where we are and where we are going.
What Has Changed
The Turkish AI landscape in early 2026 looks nothing like it did in mid-2023:
More builders — when we started, the number of people in Turkey actively building with LLMs could fit in a single room. Today, there are thousands of developers shipping AI-powered products, from startups to enterprise teams.
Stronger companies — Turkish AI companies have raised significant funding, shipped products used globally, and proven that world-class AI products can be built from Turkey. Members of our community are leading companies at the forefront of AI-native products.
Better infrastructure — cloud GPU availability in the region has improved. Turkish developers have better access to compute than ever before, and the open source model ecosystem means you do not always need a GPU cluster to build something meaningful.
Community growth — our hackathons, events, and online discussions have brought together a diverse group of people who push each other to build better. The connections formed in this community have led to collaborations, hiring, and new ventures.
The Global Context
The global AI landscape has evolved dramatically:
Models are commoditizing — the gap between the best open source models and the best proprietary models continues to narrow. DeepSeek, Qwen, LLaMA, and Mistral provide open alternatives for nearly every use case.
Agents are mainstream — AI systems that can take actions, use tools, and complete multi-step tasks are now standard in software development, customer support, and data analysis.
Multimodal is the default — every major model understands text, images, and audio. The concept of a "text-only" model feels dated.
Reasoning has matured — inference-time compute scaling, pioneered by o1 and adopted by DeepSeek R1 and others, has made AI dramatically better at math, science, and complex analysis.
Small models are everywhere — on-device AI is a reality. Models running on phones, laptops, and edge devices handle tasks that once required cloud infrastructure.
Lessons Learned
Looking back, several lessons stand out:
Build, do not wait — the teams that shipped early, even with imperfect models, are far ahead of those who waited for "perfect" AI. Shipping teaches you things that reading papers never will.
Community matters — AI moves too fast for anyone to keep up alone. The builders who are connected to a community of peers learn faster, avoid dead ends, and find opportunities sooner.
Open source is the foundation — whether you are using open models directly, fine-tuning them, or using them as baselines, the open source ecosystem is the bedrock of practical AI work.
Focus on the problem, not the model — the best AI products are not "ChatGPT wrappers." They are solutions to real problems that happen to use AI as a key component.
What Is Ahead
Looking forward to the rest of 2026 and beyond:
Turkish language AI — we expect to see more models and datasets specifically optimized for Turkish, driven by both community efforts and commercial demand.
AI-native startups — the next wave of Turkish startups will be built AI-first, not AI-added. The product design, engineering architecture, and business model will all assume AI as a core capability.
Regulation and policy — as AI becomes more prevalent, Turkey will need clear frameworks for responsible AI development and deployment. The community should be actively involved in shaping these.
Global contribution — Turkish AI researchers and builders are increasingly publishing papers, contributing to open source, and building products used worldwide. This trend will accelerate.
Our Role
Generative AI Turkey exists to accelerate all of this. We connect builders, organize hackathons, share knowledge, and create a space where the best AI minds in Turkey can find each other.
If you are building with AI — whether you are a seasoned researcher or just getting started — this community is for you. The next two years will be even more transformative than the last two.
Let's build.