AV2 moves closer to final spec after draft release
AOMedia’s next-generation AV2 codec appears to be moving toward its final 1.0.0 release. A recent commit in the AOMedia AVM repository updates the changelog with “2026-05-29 v1.0.0” and calls it the “First released version of AV2.”
The change was spotted by users on Reddit. The post notes that AV2 is now expected to finalize on May 29, 2026, which would put the release roughly half a year behind the earlier year-end 2025 target mentioned by AOMedia.
Source: Github
AV2 is the successor to AV1 and remains under the Alliance for Open Media. AOMedia previously said the codec would bring better compression than AV1, with support for AR and VR use cases, split-screen delivery, improved screen content handling, and a wider visual quality range.
The full final specification has not yet been published. A draft AV2 Bitstream and Decoding Process Specification is already public, with the current v13 draft listing the full specification, syntax browser, lookup-table attachments, and release notes. However, the GitHub page still marks it as a draft release and says work continues toward the final AV2 specification release.
Of course, keep in mind it it likely years before we see deployment and focus from hardware manufacturers on AV2. If memory serves me well, it took 2 years after the 2018 release for Intel to add AV1 acceleration in the Tiger Lake laptop series.
Sources: AOMedia (Github), Reddit (AV1)