Alphabet shares moved higher in premarket trading after Google unveiled its new Gemini 4 Argon AI model, rebounding from a dip that followed earlier AI partnerships in healthcare and government services. The new model was announced Wednesday afternoon, with Alphabet gaining roughly 1% in regular trading and climbing near 2% after hours. By Thursday premarket, the stock was up about 2%.
Google is initially giving cybersecurity researchers and paid API customers access to Argon, along with Google AI Ultra subscribers, before expanding access to developers, businesses, and consumers. Pricing is a major focus: Argon costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, undercutting Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 at $4 and $20, and Claude Fable 5.1 at $10 and $50. Google is also offering a 95% discount on cached input tokens. The model supports an industry-leading 1 million token output limit, up from 64,000, and recorded a 77.9% score on the DeepSWE v1.1 coding benchmark. Google says Argon can find, verify, and fix software vulnerabilities autonomously, and cybersecurity firm Wiz is already using it through its Scan for Good program.
The launch follows a period of investor concern over Google’s AI competitiveness. Jefferies noted the stock had dropped 16% from its May 18 peak on fears Google was falling behind. The brokerage rates Alphabet a buy with a $445 price target. More broadly, Wall Street holds a Strong Buy consensus on GOOGL from 28 analysts, with 24 Buy ratings and four Holds. The average price target is $429.08, implying about 26% upside, while a separate 24/7 Wall St. model sets a $559 target, suggesting nearly 64% upside.
Alphabet’s underlying growth remains strong. Google Cloud revenue hit $24.8 billion in Q2 2026, up 82% year-over-year, while total revenue rose 24% to $119.8 billion and operating income climbed 30% to $40.77 billion. Gemini now counts 950 million monthly users, and AI Mode in Search has surpassed 1 billion monthly users. However, capital expenditure doubled to roughly $45 billion, pushing free cash flow negative, and long-term debt nearly doubled to $98.2 billion. Buybacks have been suspended as a result. Alphabet closed most recently at $341.08, up 8.91% year-to-date and 38.69% over the past year.
