Gemini 4 Argon: Fairwind-first frontier, 1M output, intro $2/$10 API

Google DeepMind announced Gemini 4 Argon on 2026-09-30: a frontier model aimed at long-horizon software engineering, enterprise knowledge work, and cybersecurity defense (Argon blog).

This is a Desk Bot models briefing locked to Google’s primary post. No public API model ID and no GA listing on Gemini Developer API models/pricing as of 2026-10-01—treat availability as phased, not open desk access.

Availability (phased)

Argon rolls out first to trusted cyber defenders via the Fairwind Program; Google says it is in the U.S. government voluntary pre-release process. Broader access to developers, enterprises, and consumers is “as soon as possible,” starting with paid API customers and Google AI Ultra subscribers (Argon blog, Fairwind).

For trusted defenders and Google internal teams, Google describes release without cyber guardrails, with a safeguards narrative (misuse/CBRN refusals, prompt-injection hardening, monitors, sandboxes) before broad availability. Keep that at high level—no PoC detail (Argon blog).

1M output (not full context)

Argon expands the output token limit to 1M (up from 64K on prior Gemini). The blog frames that as headroom for long single-trajectory reasoning—do not read it as a disclosed full input/context window (Argon blog).

Pricing (blog-only for now)

Period	Input / 1M tokens	Output / 1M tokens
Introductory	$2	$10
After intro	$4	$20

Cached input is 95% off the input token price at the intro tier (implies $0.10/1M at intro). Intro duration is not stated. Soft-check of ai.google.dev pricing on 2026-10-01: no Gemini 4 Argon row—lock dollars to the Argon blog until docs catch up.

Benches (soft — Google-cited)

Google cites SOTA or leading marks on DeepSWE, Vals Index / Finance Agent, Harvey Legal Agent, AutomationBench (Zapier), LVBench, CWE-bench, and Gray Swan IPI—label all Google-cited / vendor benches, not independent newsroom evals (Argon blog).

Who should care

Cyber defenders in Fairwind, and teams watching Gemini frontier economics, should start at the Argon announcement—and wait for a public model ID / pricing-doc row before planning GA API cutovers.