Gemini 4 Carbon release
- Google DeepMind made Gemini 4 Carbon generally available on November 10, opening it to paying developers and Google AI Ultra subscribers after roughly two weeks of restricted access for cybersecurity defenders.
- Third-party benchmarks placed Carbon first on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5 but behind Claude Code with Opus 5.5 on the Coding Agent Index (59 vs. 62), and a reviewer found its ExploitGym result used a longer compute window, putting Carbon at 53.5% under matched conditions.
- Databricks added Carbon on November 11, reporting 66.7% on OfficeQA Pro v2 versus 57.8% for Argon, with introductory pricing set to double on December 1.
Carbon is Google DeepMind's current flagship model, reaching developers at pricing comparable to competing mid-tier models before a December 1 doubling. Benchmark results show it leads overall rankings in some evaluations while trailing competitors in coding and agentic knowledge work, giving developers a mixed picture of where it performs best.