Google Releases Gemini 4 Hydrogen, Replacing 3.8 Flash Across Products

Google released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, the lowest-cost model in the Gemini 4 family, priced at $1.50 per million input tokens, $0.075 for cached input and $7.50 per million output tokens. Simon Willison notes that Carbon and Argon both cost $2.00/$0.10/$10.00 until Nov 30, 2026 and double from Dec 1, 2026, so Hydrogen is currently only about 25% cheaper than its larger siblings, a gap that widens to roughly 75% after the increase. Hydrogen is also the new free tier model and will power AI features in Google Search.

Google released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a new model it says gives more helpful answers to complex questions, including questions with multiple parts, hard-to-understand typos, or highly specific requests. It is available starting today in Search, the Gemini app, all tiers of Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, Gemini for business, and Google Antigravity for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, and Google Search VP Robby Stein says it is now the default model in AI Mode and is used for the hardest questions in AI Overviews.

Google has released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a fast general-purpose model for developers and everyday users, priced at $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens with a one-million-token context window. Google says Hydrogen scores 51 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at its default high thinking level and 54 at the new xhigh level, versus 50 for the larger Gemini 4 Argon. Independent testing by Artificial Analysis puts Hydrogen roughly on par with Claude Sonnet 5.5 at maximum thinking, but weaker on agentic terminal work, scoring 54 percent on Terminal-Bench 4.0 against 64 percent for Claude Sonnet 5.5.

Google released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a fast-execution model it calls its biggest Search improvement yet, and is rolling the update out to all Search users globally. Google says Hydrogen completes tasks 2.5 times faster than Gemini 3.8 Flash and beats the more powerful Gemini 4 Argon on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at its default high thinking level. In Search it improves intent understanding, typo handling, fan-out subqueries and visual responses in AI Mode, and it is also coming to AI Studio, the Gemini API, the Gemini App and Antigravity.

Google has released Gemini 4 Hydrogen, which replaces Gemini 3.8 Flash across the company's products with immediate access rather than the staged, paid-tier-only rollout used for its recent Argon and Carbon releases. Google says Hydrogen runs at one of four thinking levels (low, medium, high, and a new xhigh) and is 2.5 times faster than Flash 3.8 even in high mode, while cutting fabricated claims by more than 5x. It also more than triples 3.8 Flash's Terminal-Bench score and reaches 54 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index in xhigh mode, versus 50 for Argon.

An analysis of Gemini 4 Hydrogen (Xhigh) covers its intelligence and capability indexes across specific capabilities and industries, along with token use cost and context window. Performance is measured by time per task in minutes, output speed in tokens per second, and time to first answer token and first token in seconds.

Google introduced Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a model built for rapid execution in everyday coding and agentic workflows, rolling out globally across the Gemini API, AI Studio, Gemini for business, the Gemini app, Google Search, and Google Antigravity.

Google DeepMind introduced Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a Gemini 4 model built for fast everyday coding and agentic execution rather than the long-horizon reasoning of Gemini 4 Carbon and Argon. It scores 51 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at its default high thinking level versus 50 for Argon, reaches 54 at a new xhigh setting, and is priced flat at $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens across its 1 million-token context window. Google also launched Orchestrator in Google Antigravity, which switches between models like Carbon and Hydrogen within a session and reached near-Carbon task success on Terminal-Bench 4.0 while using 24% less quota and finishing 19% faster.

Google Search has moved all users worldwide to Gemini 4 Hydrogen, which the company calls its biggest model upgrade to Search yet. The model improves intent understanding for multi-part and typo-heavy questions, adds deeper instruction following and tool calling, and strengthens query fan-out to surface links users might not otherwise find. Responses also become more visual, with more images, comparison tables and custom tools, across all supported AI Mode languages.