Google releases three new Gemini models — but no 3.5 Pro

Google DeepMind on Tuesday announced the release of three new Gemini models: 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber. Gemini 3.6 Flash is the company's "workhorse model," offering improved capabilities in coding, knowledge work, and multimodal performance while reducing token usage by up to 17%, making it cheaper than its predecessor 3.5 Flash.

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the most cost-effective model in its class, while 3.5 Flash Cyber is a specialized model fine-tuned for finding and fixing cybersecurity vulnerabilities at a decent price point. According to Google, this model will be exclusively available to governments and trusted partners as part of a limited access pilot program.

The company says the focus of these releases is to deliver efficiency, latency, and reliability to customers building AI agents at scale. The launch is notable not only for what Google shipped — cheaper, faster models optimized for coding, efficiency, and cybersecurity — but also for what it didn’t ship. The update does not include the long-anticipated update to Google’s flagship model, Gemini Pro, which was last updated in February.

Since that launch, OpenAI has released GPT-5.5 and begun rolling out GPT-5.6, while Anthropic has launched Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Sonnet 5 and expanded access to its frontier Fable 5 model, highlighting the intense release pace of rival labs. Google teased the Pro release in May alongside the 3.5 Flash, stating that the Pro version was "already being used internally, and we look forward to rolling it out next month."

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Google was facing internal delays in launching 3.5 Pro as it struggled to meet internal performance goals. Gemini Pro models are generally Google’s highest-capability offerings for complex reasoning and coding tasks, while Flash models prioritize lower cost and faster response times for production applications.

Google DeepMind product lead Logan Kilpatrick said on Tuesday that the company is currently testing Gemini 3.5 Pro with partners and hopes to "land soon." He also noted that the team has started its most ambitious pre-training run yet for Gemini 4.