Google adds Gemini Flash models while 3.5 Pro waits offstage
Google announced Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite and a limited cybersecurity model, while saying Gemini 3.5 Pro remains in partner testing.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
Google has rolled out three Gemini models, but the one many AI watchers have been waiting for, Gemini 3.5 Pro, is still not generally available.
In a July 21 blog post, Google announced Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber. The company said the new Flash models are aimed at developers building AI agents that need efficiency, speed and dependable performance at scale.
Google also gave a short update on Gemini 3.5 Pro, saying the model is being tested with partners and will be released more broadly when it is ready. The company added that training runs have already started for a future Gemini 4 model.
That delay keeps the spotlight on a missed date from Google I/O in May, when Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Gemini 3.5 Pro would arrive in June. Since then, Anthropic and OpenAI have released new frontier models, Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol, while Chinese AI lab Moonshot has launched Kimi K3, described as a lower-cost competitive open-source model.
What Google says is new
Gemini 3.6 Flash is being positioned by Google as the general-purpose option in the lineup. The company described it as a step up from 3.5 Flash for coding, knowledge work and multimodal tasks.
Google said Gemini 3.6 Flash will cost $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens, which it said is cheaper than 3.5 Flash. The company also published benchmark results that it said show gains across several types of tasks.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is pitched as the speed demon of the 3.5 family. Google cited Artificial Analysis figures saying the model can produce 350 output tokens per second.
The Lite model is priced at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens, according to Google. The company said it is built for high-volume jobs where latency matters, including agentic search and document processing, and said it beats the previous Flash-Lite generation on agentic benchmarks.
The cyber model gets a tighter gate
Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber is the most specialized release. Google said it is built to find and fix software vulnerabilities and is being used inside CodeMender, the company’s code security agent.
Unlike the new Flash models, Flash Cyber will not get a broad release. Google said access will be limited to governments and selected partners through a pilot program because a model that can identify security flaws carries dual-use risks.
Google also said Gemini 3.6 Flash includes expanded safeguards against jailbreak attempts tied to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear misuse, as well as cyber offenses. The company said the goal is to block harmful requests while reducing unnecessary refusals for legitimate users.
For now, Google’s Gemini lineup has fresh Flash options and a more tightly controlled security tool. Gemini 3.5 Pro, meanwhile, remains in the testing queue.
This story draws on original reporting from Mashable.