Google's Gemini 4 Carbon lifts bets on Google as the top AI model at year-end

Traders now see Google as the likeliest company to hold the top spot on the Chatbot Arena text leaderboard at the end of December, with Anthropic the runner-up and OpenAI a long shot. Anthropic's chances fell sharply on Thursday, from a toss-up to unlikely, while Google's have risen from unlikely to a toss-up since the story began.

The likely reason is Google's Gemini 4 Carbon. Google announced the model on Oct. 28 and described it as its strongest, according to the company and Reuters. Arena's official text leaderboard now lists Carbon first with a preliminary score of 1,528, ahead of Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 at 1,509. Google said Carbon would initially be available only to a subset of cyber defenders, but it already appears on the leaderboard that decides this question.

The slide came after a long climb for Anthropic. Its odds sat a little below a toss-up in mid-October, rose over the weekend of Oct. 17 and 18, and peaked around Oct. 20. They dipped the next day, recovered, and rose again from Oct. 25 through Tuesday, when Anthropic looked slightly ahead. On Wednesday they fell back, and on Thursday afternoon they dropped again in a sharp, heavily traded move. Google's odds climbed in bursts over the same two days.

A separate bet on Anthropic leading at the end of November also shows it as unlikely.

The question is settled by the company that owns the model in first place on Arena's "Rank" column for text, with style control off, on Dec. 31. Ties are broken by Arena score. Google's earlier Gemini 4 Argon entered the leaderboard at No. 1 in early October with a preliminary score of 1,525, based on far fewer votes than some established rivals. Anthropic's models stayed close among the top entries. An Oct. 19 report from The Information, carried by StreetInsider, said Anthropic was preparing a model with stronger reasoning, though no launch date was confirmed.

Carbon's score is still marked preliminary, and Google's rollout begins with a limited group, so the order could change again. No further decision date is scheduled. Traders will be watching for new model releases, how they perform on the leaderboard, and any change at the top before the end-of-year check.