Google releases Gemini 4 Argon first to trusted cyber defenders

Google announced Gemini 4 Argon on 30 September, rolling it out first to trusted cyber defenders through its Fairwind Program, with wider access to follow.

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Check our sources · 10 facts from 1 source

Release artwork on a blue gradient: the Gemini star and the name Gemini 4 Argon on the left, a large white numeral 4 on the right. — source · The company's own image of its product, used to report on it

Key points

Google says Argon is rolling out to a set of trusted cyber defenders through its Fairwind Program, and will be released to them without cyber guardrails.
Google says Argon launches at an introductory price of $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, and its output limit rises to 1M tokens from 64K.
Google reports 77.9% on DeepSWE v1.1 and 91.7% on LVBench, calling both state of the art, and says Argon ranks first on Zapier’s AutomationBench at 51.3%.

What happened

Google announced Gemini 4 Argon on 30 September 2026. It is rolling out first to a set of trusted cyber defenders through the Fairwind Program. Google says it will make Argon available to developers, enterprises and consumers as soon as possible, after a phased expansion.

Argon will launch at an introductory price of $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. Cached input tokens are priced at 95% off the input token price. Google raised the output token limit to 1M tokens, up from 64K. Google reports 77.9% on DeepSWE v1.1, 51.3% on AutomationBench and 91.7% on LVBench.

For trusted defenders and its own teams, Google will release Argon without cyber guardrails.

What it means for you

Our view

Google says Argon reaches developers, enterprises and consumers after the trusted defenders, starting with paid API customers and Google AI Ultra subscribers, and that early feedback feeds its work on guardrails.

The prices it gives are introductory, so a budget built on them needs a second figure from Google for the period afterwards. The scores and the label state of the art are Google’s own, and the AutomationBench ranking is Google’s report on a third party’s test.

If you plan to use Argon, ask Google what price applies after the introductory period, and run it on your own tasks before relying on its published results.

It adds no new facts.

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Check our sources

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1 Gemini 4 Argon: our next era of frontier intelligenceGoogle · 30 Sep 2026 · 10 facts

Open the source

Google published Gemini 4 Argon: our next era of frontier intelligence on 30 September 2026.

Gemini 4 Argon: our next era of frontier intelligence
Google says Gemini 4 Argon is "rolling out to a set of trusted cyber defenders through our Fairwind Program".

Today, we’re announcing our new frontier model, Gemini 4 Argon, which is rolling out to a set of trusted cyber defenders through our Fairwind Program.
Google says it will keep gathering feedback from early testers as it iterates on guardrails before making Argon available to developers, enterprises, and consumers "as soon as possible", starting with paid API customers and Google AI Ultra subscribers.
Toned down to what the source says
We’ll continue to gather feedback from early testers as we iterate on guardrails before making Argon available to developers, enterprises, and consumers as soon as possible.
Google says "Argon will launch at an introductory price of $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cached input tokens priced at 95% off input token price."

Argon will launch at an introductory price of $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cached input tokens priced at 95% off input token price.
Google says it is expanding the output token limit to "1M tokens, up from the previous 64K tokens".

we are significantly expanding the model’s output token limit to an industry-leading 1M tokens, up from the previous 64K tokens.
Google reports a score of 77.9% on DeepSWE v1.1 and calls it a new state of the art; the result is Google’s own.
Toned down to what the source says
It sets a new state of the art on DeepSWE v1.1 (77.9%), which measures a model’s performance in real-world long-horizon software engineering tasks.
Google says Argon ranks #1 on Zapier’s AutomationBench with a score of 51.3%.

On AutomationBench, Zapier’s benchmark measuring end-to-end execution across core business functions, Argon ranks #1 with a score of 51.3%.
Google reports a score of 91.7% on LVBench, which measures long video understanding, and calls it state of the art; the result is Google’s own.
Toned down to what the source says
For example, on LVBench, which measures long video understanding, Argon is state of the art with a score of 91.7%.
Google says "For trusted defenders and our own internal teams at Google, we’ll be releasing Argon without cyber guardrails".

For trusted defenders and our own internal teams at Google, we’ll be releasing Argon without cyber guardrails so they can leverage its full frontier-level cybersecurity defense capabilities.
Google says it is actively engaged in the U.S. government’s voluntary process for pre-release model access.

We are actively engaged in the U.S. government’s voluntary process for pre-release model access while we gradually expand access.

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