Google releases Gemini 4 Argon at $2 per 1M input tokens with a 1M-token context window

What Google announced

Google DeepMind released Gemini 4 Argon on 13 October 2026. In the launch post, Koray Kavukcuoglu, Chief AI Architect at Google, calls it the company's latest frontier model and says it is built for deep work in coding, finance, legal, cybersecurity and science. Google says Argon ranked first on the Vals Index, which scores models on finance, coding, legal and tax tasks. The post also says this is the first model of the Gemini 4 family, with more to follow.

Argon is available to developers through the paid tier of the Gemini API in AI Studio and Android Studio, to enterprises through Gemini for business and Google Antigravity, and to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search. Google AI Ultra subscribers can also try it in Antigravity, Google's agent development platform.

Price and limits for API users

The Gemini API pricing page lists $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, including thinking tokens, through 30 November 2026. From 1 December 2026 the price doubles to $4 and $20. Cached input costs $0.10 per million tokens during the introductory period, and only implicit caching is supported. Batch processing costs half the standard rate. The model is not offered on the free tier.

The model page gives a context window of 1,048,576 tokens as a single limit for input and output combined. Default synchronous output is capped at 65,536 tokens, and a long-decode mode allows output up to the full window. Argon accepts text, images, video, audio and PDF, and outputs text. The API supports function calling, code execution, search and Maps grounding, file search, structured outputs and a preview of computer use.

What Google says Argon can do

Google gives several internal examples. It says Argon helped the Chrome team refactor a legacy folder of about 6 million lines, and that Argon in Antigravity raised agentic code submissions by more than 35% while cutting rollbacks by nearly a third. Google also says Argon scored 87% on the Embodied Reasoning (ERQA) benchmark. These are vendor claims, and independent results were not part of the announcement.

On safety, Google says external bio red teaming unlocked less than 1% of tested bio sub-tasks, and that shortcut attempts on coding benchmarks fell to 2%. Google also says Argon leads the Gray Swan indirect prompt injection benchmark with an attack success rate of 0.7%. Cyber defenders can apply to the Fairwind Program for access without cyber guardrails.

What to watch next

The main date for budgets is 1 December 2026, when the API price doubles. Google has not named the other Gemini 4 models or given dates for them. Leaderboards move quickly. As of 27 October 2026, the Vals Index lists Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Opus 5.5 above Argon, so ranking claims should be read with their date. The release is recorded on the AI model release tracker, and more launches are listed under AI Models.

Questions people ask

How much does Gemini 4 Argon cost?

$2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens through 30 November 2026. From 1 December 2026 the price is $4 and $20, according to Google's pricing page.

Can free Gemini API users access Gemini 4 Argon?

No. Google's pricing page says Gemini 4 Argon is not available on the free tier. Developers need the paid tier of the Gemini API.

What is the context window of Gemini 4 Argon?

1,048,576 tokens, shared between input and output. Default output is 65,536 tokens, and long decode allows up to the full window.

Sources

1. Gemini 4 Argon: Built to solve your hardest problems (Google, 13 Oct 2026)
2. Gemini 4 Argon model page (Google AI for Developers, 14 Oct 2026)
3. Gemini Developer API pricing (Google AI for Developers, 13 Oct 2026)
4. Gemini API release notes (Google AI for Developers, 13 Oct 2026)
5. Vals Index (Vals AI, 27 Oct 2026)