Google’s launch artwork for Gemini 4 Hydrogen. Image: Google
Google has launched Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a faster and cheaper Gemini 4 model that it says edges past Gemini 4 Argon, and it is the first Gemini 4 model free users can get. It went live on Thursday in the Gemini API, AI Studio, the Gemini app and Google Search, where Google calls it the biggest model upgrade yet.
What Gemini 4 Hydrogen does
Hydrogen is the fast end of the Gemini 4 family. Carbon and Argon are Google’s frontier models for deep, long reasoning; Hydrogen is “built for rapid execution across diverse agentic workflows”, Google DeepMind’s Koray Kavukcuoglu, who promised Gemini 4 “much earlier” than expected in September, writes, meaning everyday coding, research and office work. Its model card says it is adapted from Gemini 4 Carbon, has a 1 million token context window and can write up to 1 million tokens in the background, with a knowledge cutoff of March 2026.
It has four thinking levels: low, medium, high (the default) and a new xhigh setting, so developers pay only for the reasoning a job needs. Google also wants it working alongside its bigger models. A new Orchestrator feature in Antigravity, its agent coding app, switches between Carbon and Hydrogen in one session; on Terminal-Bench 4.0, Google says, it came close to Carbon’s success rate while using 24% less quota and finishing 19% faster. In Carbon’s /swarm teams, Hydrogen can run the worker and checker agents.
The model card has one catch. Compared with Gemini 3.8 Flash, Hydrogen refuses more harmless requests, “particularly for multimodal prompts”, and its full safety report is due “in the coming days”.
Gemini 4 Hydrogen price and benchmarks
Hydrogen costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens, flat across its whole context window, and unlike Argon and Carbon it has a free API tier, according to Google’s pricing page:
| Model | Input (per 1M tokens) | Output (per 1M tokens) | Free API tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 4 Hydrogen | $1.50 | $7.50 | Yes |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $2 ($4 from Dec 1) | $10 ($20 from Dec 1) | No |
| Gemini 4 Carbon | $2 ($4 from Dec 1) | $10 ($20 from Dec 1) | No |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $0.75 ($1.50 from Jan 1) | $3.75 ($7.50 from Jan 1) | Yes |
Paid tier prices in US dollars, from Google’s Gemini API pricing page on November 12, 2026. Free-tier prompts can be used to improve Google’s products.
Google says Hydrogen scores 51 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at its default setting, one point above Argon, and 54 at xhigh. Carbon scored 60 when we checked on November 10. Against 3.8 Flash, Google says Hydrogen finishes tasks 2.5 times faster at its default setting, scores 57% on Terminal-Bench 4.1 against 18.2%, and makes up facts more than five times less often. These are Google’s own figures and haven’t been checked independently.
Who can use Gemini 4 Hydrogen, and where
Google says Hydrogen is rolling out globally and hasn’t named any countries that miss out:
- Everyone: Google Search, for all users, and the Gemini app. Free app users get Hydrogen when the app’s automatic model choice picks it for a prompt.
- Developers: the Gemini API in Google AI Studio, on free and paid tiers, and the paid tier in Android Studio.
- Subscribers: Google AI Pro and Ultra members can use it in Antigravity and in Gemini in Google Sheets.
- Businesses: Gemini for business, through the API or its model menu, plus Antigravity and Sheets for eligible plans.
That is a wider launch than its siblings. Argon reached only paying users in October, after starting with cyber defenders, and Carbon is still for paying customers only.
“The biggest model upgrade to Search yet”
Search is where most people will meet Hydrogen, and it is now live for all users worldwide, Google’s Search post says:
Today, Google Search is bringing cutting-edge intelligence to everyone with Gemini 4 Hydrogen. This is the biggest model upgrade to Search yet.
Robby Stein, VP of Product, Google Search
Google says Search now copes better with long, multi-part questions and typos, and answers with more images, comparison tables and “custom tools built for you”. Hydrogen also powers a stronger version of query fan-out, the technique that runs many searches at once behind one answer, which Google says links to a broader range of websites than before. The upgrade covers every language AI Mode supports.
Why it matters
Hydrogen brings Gemini 4 to Google’s biggest audiences, Search users and free app users, six weeks after Argon launched for cyber defenders alone. If its scores hold up independently, developers get Argon-level results at a lower price, and a free tier to try it.
Sources: Google, Google Search, Google for Developers, Gemini 4 Hydrogen model card, Gemini API pricing.
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