Google launches Gemini 4 Argon, undercutting OpenAI and Anthropic on price

Google has officially released Gemini 4 Argon, its newest frontier AI model, to developers and enterprises worldwide, pricing the model below OpenAI and Anthropic as it chases more business and developer customers.

Pricing aimed at undercutting rivals

Google’s launch blog lists introductory pricing at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, with cached inputs costing 95% less, or $0.10 per million tokens. The rates are set to remain in effect till November 30, after which they double.

This entry point sits below both main competitors, as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 charges $4 and $20 per million input and output tokens respectively, while OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra charges $10 and $50. On a per-task basis, Mashable puts Argon at about $1.99 against the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, which is almost 60% of what GPT-6 Astra costs.

Developers and enterprises will assess Argon through the Gemini API in AI Studio and the Gemini platform. Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers can use it right in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search, while the Antigravity coding tool stays limited to Ultra accounts, according to Google’s post on X.

Gemini 4 Argon is available now for Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in @GeminiApp and AI Mode in Search, Ultra subscribers in @Antigravity, and to developers and enterprises via the Gemini API in @GoogleAIStudio and the Gemini platform.

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 (@Google) October 13, 2026

Where Google’s Gemini Argon lands on benchmarks

Google says Argon tops the Vals Index, which measures performance across finance, coding, legal and tax tasks. However, the company’s own comparison table shows Argon leading in 14 of 18 results, tying with GPT-6 on cybersecurity and trailing in five.

On Artificial Analysis’ Intelligence Index, which tests models on standardized hardware, Argon scores 53 on its “High” setting. That ties with GPT-6 Astra and just about edges out GPT-6.1 Sol and Meta’s new Muse Wonder Max by a point.

It trails Claude Opus 5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5.5 by about five points though, while still marking a jump of 23 points over Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, Google’s previous top model.

Early customers and a cyber carve-out

Google named Deloitte, LexisNexis, Ambience Healthcare, and Isomorphic Labs among the first firms testing Argon. The tech giant is also expanding its Fairwind Program to include hundreds more partners, giving vetted cybersecurity defenders access to a version of the model with its cyber safeguards removed.

Google claims its own engineering teams running Argon in Antigravity increased agentic code submissions by over 35% and reduced code rollbacks by almost a third.

The company also credited the model with helping Chrome engineers complete an architectural overhaul spanning hundreds of files in Chromium’s 40-million-line codebase.

Launch comes after rocky period at DeepMind

Google stated in September that it would no longer ship Gemini 3.5 Pro, a model CEO Sundar Pichai had once slated for June. Google later reorganized DeepMind after co-founder Demis Hassabis stepped aside and several Gemini leaders left the company.

Argon first surfaced on September 30 in a post by DeepMind SVP Koray Kavukcuoglu, who said access was initially limited to vetted cyber defenders in the Fairwind Program.

Google says Argon rejects requests involving cyberattacks or chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats. On Gray Swan’s prompt-injection test, it recorded a 0.7% attack success rate, compared with 1.0% for Opus 5.5 and 8.5% for GPT-6 Astra, with lower scores indicating stronger resistance.

It is worth keeping an eye out for November 30, as Argon’s introductory API pricing will then expire with its cost advantage starting to narrow.