Google introduces Gemini 4 Carbon with early access for cybersecurity defenders - EdTech Innovation Hub

Google is rolling out Gemini 4 Carbon first to selected cybersecurity defenders, giving them access to its latest AI model for finding software vulnerabilities, checking whether they can be exploited and producing fixes. Access will expand through Google DeepMind's Fairwind Program before a broader release to developers, businesses and consumers.

Google describes Carbon as its strongest model, with improvements in reasoning and engineering tasks that require sustained work across multiple steps. Carbon debuted at number one on version 5.0 of the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with a score of 59, according to Google's launch announcement.

Vulnerability detection capabilities

Google reports that Carbon scored 88.2 percent on SEC-bench Pro, which tests its ability to uncover vulnerabilities in real software, and 54.8 percent on ExploitGym, which assesses whether it can demonstrate that vulnerabilities are exploitable.

That second step helps security teams distinguish between a potential weakness and one that could be used to compromise a system, informing which fixes they prioritize. Carbon also reached 71 percent on Collinear's CWE-bench, which tests its ability to repair vulnerabilities.

Pricing and access control

Carbon will initially cost $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, matching Gemini 4 Argon's introductory rates. Tokens are the units of information a model processes, with input covering material it receives and output covering what it generates.

Cached input tokens, which allow previously processed material to be reused, will receive a 95 percent discount on the input rate. Google's pricing footnote states that rates will rise to $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens after the introductory period.

The Fairwind Program prioritizes organizations defending critical systems, including governments, healthcare providers and telecommunications services. Google DeepMind also welcomes applications from academic laboratories focused on defensive benchmarking.

Enhanced safety measures

Google is gathering feedback and refining safeguards through the initial rollout. It is also participating in the US government's voluntary process for testing models before release.

Internal testing found roughly half as many unsupported claims as Argon, while high-severity misalignment alerts fell by almost 80 percent in live coding environments used by Google teams. Carbon also recorded a zero percent attack success rate on the evaluated Gray Swan indirect prompt injection benchmark.