Google Announces Gemini 4 Argon, Starting With Cyber Defenders Before a Wider Release

Google announced Gemini 4 Argon on September 30, 2026, calling it a new frontier model in its announcement. It is not generally available yet. Argon is rolling out first to trusted cyber defenders through what Google calls the Fairwind Program.

Google says releasing capabilities at this level requires a phased approach, and that it is taking part in the U.S. government's voluntary process for pre-release model access while it gradually expands access. Feedback from early testers will shape its guardrails before a release to developers, enterprises and consumers, starting with paid API customers and Google AI Ultra subscribers. Google did not give a date for that wider release, and no public API model ID has been published.

A 1M-token output limit

The one hard specification in the announcement is the output limit. Google is raising it to 1M tokens, up from the previous 64K, so the model can reason and generate hundreds of thousands of tokens in a single run. That is the limit on what Argon can write in one response, not its context window. Google's post does not state the context window.

Pricing, announced in advance

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 the input token price. After the introductory period, the price becomes $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens. Google has not said how long the introductory period lasts.

What Google reports

Google aims Argon at long, multi-step professional work: software engineering, enterprise knowledge work in legal and finance, and cybersecurity defence. It reports 77.9% on DeepSWE v1.1, 91.7% on LVBench, a tie for first on CWE-bench v1 with 68%, and 51.3% on AutomationBench, and says Argon leads the Vals Index. These are Google's own results; the model has not yet been available for independent testing. Google also says Argon is already in use across its internal workflows.

Gemini 4 Argon is Google's first model to carry the Gemini 4 name. Our model page tracks its availability, pricing and specifications, and will add independent measurements once access opens.