Google widens Gemini 4 Carbon release as favorite for top AI model

Google made its Gemini 4 Carbon model available to developers, businesses, scientists and consumers on Tuesday, ending a limited release to cybersecurity defenders, according to the company's announcement and VentureBeat. Traders see Google as the likely year-end leader in the race for the top-ranked AI model. Anthropic is the only other serious contender and is considered unlikely to take the top spot, while OpenAI is a long shot.

Bets on Google climbed Tuesday from roughly even to clearly favored. The wider launch is the likely reason for part of that rise, since it came while the bets were climbing and reinforced a model already ranked first. It does not explain the initial jump early Tuesday, which came before the rollout, and the reason for that first move remains unclear. The broader release was also not required for Carbon to count in the ranking.

The question turns on which company owns the first-ranked model on Arena's text leaderboard, with style control off, at midday Eastern time on Dec. 31. Arena's displayed text ranking puts Google's Carbon High first with a preliminary score of 1,526, Google's Argon High second at 1,522 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 fourth at 1,506. It is not clear that the displayed ordering is the style-control-off view used to settle the question.

Google's prospects have improved in steps. They were seen as less than even in late October, then jumped on Oct. 28, when Google announced Carbon and initially limited it to selected cybersecurity defenders. Expectations held a little better than even through early November and edged up over the following week. They dipped on Monday, the day Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2 and bets on Anthropic briefly rose. They reversed sharply on Tuesday as Anthropic's chances fell back below where they had been and Google's reached their highest level of the stretch.

Traders are more confident still about the nearer term: Google is also expected to hold the top ranking at the end of November.

Seven weeks remain before the year-end check, and Carbon's current lead does not settle the question. Additional votes could shift the preliminary scores, and a rival model release could change the order before Dec. 31. If Arena's site is unavailable at the check time, the ranking will be read once it returns.