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AIMODELRACE
Google DeepMindLanguage modelNew

Gemini 4 Argon

Google's multimodal monster: sees, watches and listens better than anything, and writes up to 1M tokens back.

Overall Intelligence

#5

of 56
0.5 pts behind #1

12

races led

12

weeks at #1

88.2

score

Released
Oct 13, 2026
6 days ago
Context
1M
1M max output
Price
$2 / $10
per 1M in/out · $4.00 blended
Speed
132 tok/s
5s to first token
Modalities
text · image · audio · video
outputs text
Weights
Closed
API and apps

The 30-second version

Google's multimodal monster. Gemini 4 Argon understands images, documents, video and audio better than anything else in the race, and it is a genuine frontier contender on reasoning and science too.

Key takeaways
  • 1Dominant lead on video and audio understanding; leads the multimodal race outright.
  • 2Top of our graduate-science race and within a photo finish on overall intelligence.
  • 3Very long outputs and a 1M-token context make it strong for document-heavy work.
  • 4Priced at $2 / $10, the same as the mid-tier models it outperforms.

What you need to know

Purpose

A single model that can watch, listen, read and reason: the backbone for multimodal products and research assistants.

What Google optimised for

Native multimodality and long context, plus scientific reasoning, tightly integrated with Google Search, Workspace and Vertex AI.

Unique strengths

  • Understands long videos and audio natively, not via transcripts.
  • Excellent chart, diagram and document comprehension.
  • Strong scientific reasoning and research skills.
Insight
How it differs from rivals. No other model comes close on video and audio. On pure text and code it trades blows with Opus 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol: slightly ahead on science, slightly behind on agentic coding and writing.

Where it ranks

Current snapshot · illustrative scores · click any race to watch it

CodingHard ReasoningMathScienceWriting & LanguageMultimodalTool Use & AgentsLong ContextTrust & FactualitySpeed & Cost

Gemini 4 ArgonBest on each axis

Overall Intelligence over time

#1 frontierGemini 4 ArgonFable 5.1GPT-6 Astra
55.060.065.070.075.080.085.090.02025Apr ’25Jul ’25Oct ’252026Apr ’26Jul ’26Oct ’26

Best use cases

01

Video and meeting analysis

Summarising, searching and extracting moments from hours of footage or calls.

02

Document intelligence

Reading scanned PDFs, charts, forms and slide decks accurately.

03

Scientific research help

Literature analysis, hypothesis generation and data interpretation.

Strengths

  • Video understanding

    Dominant lead in our video-understanding race.

  • Science

    Leads the graduate-level science race.

  • Documents

    Top of the document-understanding race.

Weaknesses

  • Agentic coding

    A few points behind the Claude models on long autonomous coding.

  • Verbosity

    Can be wordy unless you set length limits.

Prompts that play to its strengths

Meeting video digest

Watch this 90-minute product review recording. Give me: (1) the five decisions made, with timestamps, (2) open questions nobody answered, (3) moments where someone seemed to disagree but did not say so explicitly, with timestamps and what you noticed.

Why it works: Uses native video and audio understanding, including tone and body language.

Chart-heavy report

Here is our 60-page quarterly report as a PDF. Extract every chart's underlying numbers into tables, flag any chart whose visual contradicts the text, and summarise the three most important trends.

Why it works: Plays to document and chart comprehension.

When to choose it, and when not to

Pick something else when…

  • Pure agentic coding marathons: Claude models are steadier.
  • When you need the most natural prose: GPT-6.1 Sol.

Update history

The distilled version first; open any release for the deeper breakdown.