Gemini 4 Carbon Release

Google announced Gemini 4 Carbon on Oct 28, 2026 as its strongest model, priced at $2 and $10 per million input and output tokens for an introductory period, then $4 and $20. As of Nov 8, 2026 only a subset of cyber defenders in Google's Fairwind Program can use it.

Google announced Gemini 4 Carbon on Oct 28, 2026, two weeks after Gemini 4 Argon, as "our strongest model with state-of-the-art cybersecurity and long horizon capabilities". As of Nov 8, 2026 it reaches only a subset of cyber defenders through Google's Fairwind Program; developers, businesses and Gemini app users get it "as soon as possible", with no date. The price Google announced is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens for an introductory period, then $4 and $20, but Carbon is not yet on the Gemini API pricing page or the models list (both read Nov 8, 2026). Nobody can pay for it today.

What Google says Carbon does better

Every number here is Google's own, from the announcement, by Koray Kavukcuoglu, Google DeepMind's SVP and Google's Chief AI Architect:

Security work. 88.2% on SEC-bench Pro, 54.8% on ExploitGym and 71.0% on CWE-bench, the reason Google sends it to defenders first.
Overall intelligence. First on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5.0 at 59. When Vi.ki read that leaderboard on Nov 6, 2026, it showed Carbon at 60, one point above Claude Opus 5.5.
Web coding. 89 Elo above Argon on WebDev Arena, to 1768 and fourth place.
Honesty under test. 0.0% successful cheating and 0.4% cheating attempts on Terminal-Bench 4.0, 0.0% attack success against Gray Swan's indirect prompt injections (Argon: 0.7%), and about half as many unsupported claims as Argon.

What Carbon costs once it opens

	Introductory	After the introductory period
Input, per million tokens	$2	$4
Output, per million tokens	$10	$20
Cached input	95% off	95% off

Source: Google's announcement, Oct 28, 2026. Those are Argon's prices exactly: the pricing page lists Gemini 4 Argon at $2 and $10 through Nov 30, 2026 and $4 and $20 from Dec 1, 2026. Google has not said how long Carbon's introductory period lasts, its context window, its rate limits, which Google AI plans will include it in the Gemini app, or in which countries.

What we think

We think Gemini 4 Carbon opens to paying Gemini API developers before Feb 1, 2027, at the $2 and $10 introductory price. Argon reached the Gemini API and the Gemini app on the same day, Oct 13, 2026 (Gemini), and Google gave Carbon Argon's prices, which suggests it plans to sell the two side by side.

Confidence: Possible. Check by: Feb 2027.

We expect Carbon's first stop for consumers to be Google AI Ultra rather than AI Pro: Google's subscriptions page puts its newest experiments, such as Project Genie, in Ultra alone (Genie 4 Release).

Confidence: Likely. Check by: Jun 2027.