Poolside Launches Free Open AI Coding Model

American AI startup Poolside has released Laguna XS.2, a free open-source model optimized for agentic coding tasks. The San Francisco company, founded in 2023, also unveiled two new Laguna large language models designed for autonomous workflows. The release stands out as a rare affordable, high-performing open-source contender from a U.S. firm, entering a market dominated by pricey proprietary models from Anthropic and OpenAI, and low-cost open models from Chinese companies like DeepSeek and Xiaomi.