Google has begun rolling out Gemini 4 Carbon to the general public, about two weeks after the company announced the model on October 28. The Gemini 4 Carbon release date for consumers has arrived, but access is staged: AI Ultra subscribers, who pay $99.99 a month, get it first in the Gemini app. Google calls Carbon its strongest model so far and says it is built for the hardest multi-step tasks.
Who can use Carbon now
Carbon is available to AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app, in AI Mode in Search and on Google's agentic development platform, Antigravity. AI Pro subscribers, who pay $20 a month, still use Gemini 4 Argon as their default model, and free Gemini users do not get Carbon at all. Google has not said when, or whether, Carbon will reach AI Pro subscribers, so the Gemini 4 Carbon release date for that group is still unconfirmed.
Reports differ on developer access. One says paying developers and enterprises can use Carbon through the Gemini API in Google AI Studio, while another says AI Studio requires an AI Ultra subscription. The Gemini API is the interface that lets software developers build Google's models into their own apps.
Pricing, benchmarks and the agent swarm
The introductory API price is $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. A token is a small unit of text that AI models read and write, and API prices are charged per token. After the introductory period, the rates double to $4 and $20. Argon's introductory pricing ends on November 30, and a developer-tools company said on X that Carbon's lower rate also runs until that date, while one report says Google has not announced when Carbon's period ends.
Google's own benchmarks show Carbon ahead of Argon in several tests, including 88.2% on SEC-bench Pro for finding software vulnerabilities and 96.2% on GraphWalks, a long-context test, compared with Argon's 84.2%. Google also says Carbon beats Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 on 14 of 16 comparable benchmarks and OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra on 16 of 17. A third-party ranking, the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5.0, placed Carbon first overall. Companies can choose the tests that show their products best, so these results are company claims until more independent testing is available.
Google is also previewing an 'agent swarm' feature on Antigravity. An AI agent is a program that carries out a series of steps on its own, and the swarm feature lets a user turn one prompt into a coordinated team of agents. Google aims it at long-running work such as complex coding and open-ended research, and says Argon will likely remain the better choice for most software engineering and knowledge work.
Timeline: what has happened so far
- September 30: Google announced Gemini 4 Argon and limited access to cyber defenders.
- October 13: Argon opened to paying subscribers, 13 days after its announcement.
- October 28: Google announced Carbon and limited it to cyber defenders through its Fairwind Program, citing a voluntary US government safety review.
- About two weeks after October 28: Google began the public rollout of Carbon, starting with AI Ultra subscribers in the Gemini app.
- November 30: Argon's introductory API pricing expires, according to the reports.
Aasan alfaaz mein
Google ne Gemini 4 Carbon ko aam logon ke liye rollout karna shuru kar diya hai, lekin abhi pehle AI Ultra subscribers ko access mil raha hai, jo $99.99 per month dete hain. AI Pro users abhi bhi Gemini 4 Argon istemal karenge, aur free users ko abhi Carbon nahi milega. Developers ke liye API ki intro price $2 aur $10 per million tokens hai, jo baad mein double hogi. Aam user ke liye abhi yeh zyada tar ek khabar hai, kyunki Google ne AI Pro aur free users ke liye agla qadam nahi bataya.
