Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) shares are trading higher in Wednesday's after-hours session after the company announced Gemini 4 Argon.

Alphabet stock is gaining positive traction. Why is GOOG stock advancing?

Google Rolls Out Gemini 4 Argon

Alphabet introduced Gemini 4 Argon on Wednesday, marking its most advanced AI model release yet. The new model offers frontier performance across complex workflows like software engineering, enterprise knowledge and cybersecurity defense.

Argon is currently being used internally by Google for memory efficiency at its data centers, quantum computing optimization and more. The company said the full release requires a phased approach and Google is engaging with the U.S. government to gradually expand access.

"We'll continue to gather feedback from early testers as we iterate on guardrails before making Argon available to developers, enterprises, and consumers as soon as possible," the company said.

Alphabet said it's currently working on strengthening critical frontier safeguards, with a focus on defending against misuse and prompt injection attacks, monitoring for misalignment and hardening systems.

Argon will initially cost $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens. The new model is expected to roll out "soon" following testing by trusted individuals.

GOOG Shares Rise After Hours

GOOG Price Action: Alphabet shares were up 1.70% in after-hours, trading at $346.52 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to market data.