Google's Gemini Astra 4 AI Model Now Available to Developers and Business Customers Google's flagship AI model Gemini Astra 4, also known as Argon, is now available to developers and business customers worldwide. The model is priced at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, making it significantly cheaper than other frontier options. Google's flagship AI model Gemini Astra 4, also known as Argon, is now available to developers and business customers worldwide, following an initial testing period. The model was initially only made available to a cohort of "trusted cyber defenders" via Google's Fairwind Program. Google's phased release-part safety protocol, part self-promotion-has become standard for frontier AI labs amid widespread anxiety over the dangers of misaligned AI. For now, Argon is only accessible to paying customers through the API in AI Studio, Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers via the Gemini App, and Antigravity, Google's agentic software development platform.Argon Model Pricing And CompetitivenessIt's currently priced at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, but starting in December this will increase. Despite its high prices, the model will be significantly cheaper than other frontier options; OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra, for instance, costs $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens. The affordability angle alone could therefore give Argon a competitive edge.Google is trying to sell its new model by emphasizing just how much its internal teams have been using it." At Google, we've been using Argon on our hardest engineering problems," Google DeepMind lead Koray Kavukcuoglu wrote in the company's blog post on Tuesday. "Over the past few weeks, software engineers have been shipping high-quality code faster than ever. " The model has also been used to make the Chrome user experience more streamlined and efficient, Kavukcuoglu added. Google's userbase, of course, isn't using AI to build robots that can play games at the next neighborhood barbecue.Google Faces AI Buildout SetbacksIf Google really wants its most powerful AI model to be a mainstream hit, it'll need to prove useful for the kinds of everyday tasks for which millions of people are already relying on Claude, ChatGPT, and Muse. A free version wouldn't hurt, either. Google has faced setbacks in its AI buildout.While competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have shipped a steady stream of new products in recent months, Google's Gemini 3.5 Pro was delayed while the company worked to strengthen its capabilities. Google has also recently lost some high-ranking researchers, including its longtime chief scientist Jeff Dean. Google's model has also been used in an internal test to solve an unsolved homicide and submit it to police, raising concerns about the potential dangers of misaligned AI.