Google releases Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a fast Gemini 4 model that edges past Argon, and brings it to Search for everyone
Confirmed
Importance: major (4 of 5)The takeaway
On Nov 12, 2026 Google released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, the fast tier of the Gemini 4 family, at $1.50/$7.50 per 1M tokens with a 1M context.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- Major (4 of 5)
- Last verified
- 13 November 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra196 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5135 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen226 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7165 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 135 days before it.
Key facts
- Price: $1.50 input / $7.50 output per 1M tokens, flat across the 1M-token context; up to 1M output tokens; API id gemini-4-hydrogen
- Artificial Analysis (independent): Intelligence Index 54 at xhigh (#16 of 78), 51 at high; ~198 output tokens/s; very verbose (304M output tokens over the index)
- Vendor benchmarks: Terminal-Bench 4.1 57% (3.8 Flash 18.2%); HLE-Diamond 58.8%; Vals Tax Agent Bench 52.3% (#1); Agents’ Last Exam v1.1 71.6%; #5 in Arena’s Agent Arena
- About 2.5x faster than 3.8 Flash at the default ‘high’ level; new ‘xhigh’ thinking level
- Availability: Gemini API and AI Studio, Android Studio, Gemini app (free users via auto selection), Google Search for all users worldwide, Antigravity for AI Pro/Ultra, Gemini in Sheets
- Antigravity adds Orchestrator (AI Ultra), which switches between Carbon and Hydrogen within one session; Google reports 24% less quota and 19% faster runs
- Vendor safety figures: misaligned actions and task shortcutting cut 12x on tool-use and coding evals; 2.3x more resilient to indirect prompt injection (Gray Swan IPI)
- Demis Hassabis (X): ‘Incredible speed and intelligence for everyday coding, agentic work and all-round use’
Show 4 more
- Artificial Analysis comparison (Techmeme summary, Nov 12-13): Hydrogen nearly ties Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol on the Intelligence Index, at about a third of Sonnet’s cost to run the index but ~2.5x Sol’s; cost per index task fell from $7.77 (3.8 Flash) to $1.87 at high effort (Haider, X)
- Arena (X): fastest model in the Agent Arena top 10, a typical step 7.3 s, about 2.7x faster than Sonnet 5.5 and 3.1x faster than GPT-6.1 Sol
- Early-access testers (X): Box AI Complex Work Eval 5 points above 3.8 Flash (Aaron Levie); Zapier AutomationBench 51.1% at high effort vs Argon 51.3%, about $0.82 per task (Wade Foster); Google’s Logan Kilpatrick: 2.5x faster than 3.8 Flash ‘with 5x less fabrications’ (vendor)
- Launch posts’ reach by Nov 13: Logan Kilpatrick 1.88M views, Gemini app 1.26M, Sundar Pichai 648k; Chrome adds Hydrogen to Gemini in Chrome (Parisa Tabriz)
What happened
Google added a third model to the Gemini 4 family. Carbon (Oct 28, GA Nov 10) and Argon (Oct 13) are the frontier tiers; Hydrogen is the fast, cheaper tier for coding, agent loops and everyday use. Google calls it a “daily driver for agentic workflows”. It went into Google Search for all users on launch day.
Why it matters
A month after Argon launched as Google’s flagship, a cheaper and faster model scores slightly above it on the main independent index. Our model picks now list it as Google’s fast model (see /models/pick/).
Sources
14 sources from 7 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
14 sources: 5 primary, 2 press, 7 reactions
Primary
- Google: Introducing Gemini 4 Hydrogenblog.google, official
- Google DeepMind: Introducing Gemini 4 Hydrogendeepmind.google, official
- Google: Search upgrade with Gemini 4 Hydrogenblog.google, official
- Antigravity blog: Gemini 4 Hydrogen and Orchestratorantigravity.google, official
- Artificial Analysis: Gemini 4 Hydrogenartificialanalysis.ai, docs
Press
- Ars Technica: Google rolls out Gemini 4 Hydrogen, finally replacing 3.8 Flasharstechnica.com, press
- 9to5Google: Gemini 4 Hydrogen launch and availability9to5google.com, press
Reactions
- Logan Kilpatrick on X: launch (1.88M views)x.com, discussion
- Gemini app on X: launch (1.26M views)x.com, discussion
- Sundar Pichai on X (648k views)x.com, discussion
- Arena on X: Agent Arena speedx.com, discussion
- Wade Foster (Zapier) on X: AutomationBenchx.com, discussion
- Aaron Levie (Box) on X: Box AI Complex Work Evalx.com, discussion
- Google DeepMind on X (333k views)x.com, discussion
Changes
- AA comparison with Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol, Arena Agent Arena speed, tester results, post reach (news agent)
- Filed (news agent)