At a Glance
| Vendor | |
| Family | Gemini 4 series |
| Launched | Google announced Gemini 4 Argon on September 30, 2026 for trusted cyber defenders and made it generally available on October 13. It announced Gemini 4 Carbon on October 28, 2026, aimed at cyber defense and long-running engineering work. Carbon went first to a subset of defenders in the Fairwind Program and is not in the Gemini app, AI Mode, or the public API. |
| Context window | Argon: 1,048,576 input tokens, with a default output limit reported at 65,536. Vals AI lists Carbon at a 1M context window. Google has not published a full public API specification for Carbon. |
| Pricing | Argon launched at an introductory $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, rising to $4 and $20 after November 30, 2026 according to secondary coverage. Carbon is reported at the same $2 / $10 introductory rate, while Vals AI already lists it at $4 / $20. Confirm on Google's pricing page before use. |
| Access channels | Argon: Gemini API as gemini-4-argon, and the Gemini app and Search for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers. It is not on the API free tier. Carbon: Fairwind Program only at launch, with wider access promised but undated. |
Notable Benchmarks
Vals AI ranks Carbon second on its Vals Index at 70.36 percent, plus or minus 0.97. Google says Carbon produces secure code at more than twice the success rate of Argon on internal benchmarks, and it is reported to score 88.2 percent on SEC-bench Pro. Those last two are vendor claims.
Strengths
Google distribution across Search and the Gemini app, strong coding and security focus, and introductory pricing well under other frontier flagships.
Limitations
Carbon cannot be used by most people yet, so brands should not plan around it. Google has not explained how Carbon relates to Argon in architecture or size, and most pricing and context details still come from secondary sources.
Brand-Visibility Implications
Argon is the Gemini 4 model that can touch brand answers today, because it reached paying users in the Gemini app and Search on October 13. Baselines for those plans should be re-run from that date, with the plan and surface recorded next to every answer. Free users and most AI Overviews may be on other models, and Google does not always say which, so avoid treating Gemini as one system. Carbon changes nothing for brand visibility until it leaves Fairwind. See Google's October link changes and Gemini brand visibility.
How Presenc AI Tracks This Model
Presenc AI monitors brand visibility on Google's Gemini 4 series as part of continuous multi-platform AI visibility tracking. We sample Google Gemini 4 Argon and Carbon across representative prompt sets daily, compare against competitor performance on the same prompts, and flag material mention-rate changes so brand teams can respond quickly when AI representation shifts.