Google launches Gemini 4 Argon at one-fifth rival pricing — SkimNews
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- Google launched Gemini 4 Argon, its first major frontier model since Gemini 3 in late 2025, ending months of trailing OpenAI and Anthropic on the frontier.
- Google claims Argon outperforms GPT-6 Astra, Claude Fable 5.1, and Claude Opus 5.5 on benchmarks spanning coding, cybersecurity, science, finance, and law, while reducing hedging, repetition, and chatbot clichés.
- Argon is rolling out to Pro and Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app and Search's AI mode, and to Ultra subscribers on the Antigravity agentic development platform — with no confirmed timeline for Plus or free users.
- Argon is priced at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, roughly one-fifth the cost of GPT-6 Astra and Anthropic's Fable 5, with prices set to double when the introductory period ends in late November.
- Google says it is already running Argon internally to patch cybersecurity vulnerabilities, halve the computing power powering YouTube's comments section, and debug the drone physics simulator for Wing.
- Argon landed one day after Meta announced its own frontier model, Muse Wonder Full, and only after a limited pre-release to "trusted cyber defenders" for risk testing, consistent with other recent frontier rollouts.
Why it matters: At roughly one-fifth the per-token cost of GPT-6 Astra and Fable 5, Google's pricing undercuts both OpenAI and Anthropic at a moment when it was widely seen as falling behind — forcing rivals to defend on cost, not just capability. Argon's immediate internal use, halving YouTube comments compute and patching security holes, gives Google a concrete productivity story to go with the benchmark claims.
Ask SkimNews
