Gemini 4 Argon tops a coding benchmark, and OpenAI shelves GPT-6.1 Astra

Google put a frontier model back on the board this week, and OpenAI took one off it.

Gemini 4 Argon was announced on September 30, 2026. Google says the model sets a new state of the art on DeepSWE v1.1, a long-horizon software-engineering benchmark, at 77.9%, ahead of Claude Opus 5.5 at 74.2% and GPT-6 Astra at 74.1%. 1

The independent reading is narrower. Artificial Analysis scores Argon at 53 on its Intelligence Index, level with GPT-6 Astra at its maximum effort setting. That puts Google back among the top three labs without putting it on top. At launch pricing, Argon costs $1.99 per index task, 60% of Astra's $3.26. 2

Argon is not generally available yet. It is rolling out to trusted cyber defenders through Google's Fairwind Program while the company works through the U.S. government's pre-release process, and Google has given no date for a wider release. 13

On September 28, OpenAI said it will not release GPT-6.1 Astra. Saachi Jain, its head of safety systems, said the model "didn't quite meet the bar in terms of staying within scope and authorization, and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it's done." The decision landed a day before OpenAI's annual developer conference, and The Wall Street Journal reported it first. 4

The next day, September 29, OpenAI shipped GPT-6.1 Sol, replacing GPT-6 Sol after seven days. It scores one point below GPT-6 Astra on the Intelligence Index at less than a quarter of Astra's cost per task, $0.72 against $3.26. 5