Google releases Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite and 3.5 Flash Cyber — but no 3.5 Pro
On 21 July 2026 Google shipped Gemini 3.6 Flash (17% fewer output tokens than 3.5 Flash, OSWorld-Verified 83.0%, knowledge cutoff March 2026), the cheap Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite ($0.30/$2.50) and a gated Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber. Google said Gemini 3.5 Pro was still "testing with partners" and that pre-training of Gemini 4 had begun.
Key facts
- GA 2026-07-21: gemini-3.6-flash and gemini-3.5-flash-lite
- 3.6 Flash price: $1.50 input / $7.50 output per 1M tokens (3.5 Flash output was $9)
- 3.6 Flash: 17% fewer output tokens than 3.5 Flash (Artificial Analysis); DeepSWE 49% (vs 37%); MLE-Bench 63.9% (vs 49.7%); OSWorld-Verified 83.0% (vs 78.4%)
- 3.6 Flash knowledge cutoff moved to March 2026
- 3.5 Flash-Lite: $0.30 / $2.50 per 1M tokens; ~350 output tokens/s; Terminal-Bench 2.1 54% (vs 31% for 3.1 Flash-Lite); SWE-Bench Pro 54.2%
- 3.5 Flash Cyber: limited to governments and trusted partners via CodeMender pilot
- Same day the API deprecated temperature, top_p and top_k parameters
- Google: Gemini 3.5 Pro 'currently testing with partners'; 'most ambitious pre-training run yet, for Gemini 4' started
What happened
Google DeepMind released three models on 21 July 2026: Gemini 3.6 Flash (new default workhorse, more token-efficient, better at coding, ML research and computer use), Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite (high-throughput, low-latency tier) and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber (vulnerability detection/patching, limited-access pilot). The Gemini API simultaneously deprecated the classic sampling parameters temperature, top_p and top_k.
Why it matters
The launch was widely read through what was missing: Gemini 3.5 Pro, promised at I/O for June, had not shipped (Bloomberg reported it struggled to meet internal performance goals). Google instead doubled down on Flash-tier models and publicly confirmed Gemini 4 pre-training had started.
Changelog
- 2026-09-29: created
Related events
- Google I/O 2026: Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini Spark agent and Antigravity 2.0 ★★★★
- Google releases Gemini 3.7 Flash at half the price of 3.6 Flash ★★★
- Google releases Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber ★★★★
- Demis Hassabis steps aside as Google DeepMind CEO; Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over, Jeff Dean leaves ★★★★
- DeepMind says Gemini 4 has entered post-training and will ship "much earlier" than end of 2026 ★★★
Sources (5)
- officialGoogle blog: Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, 3.5 Flash Cyber
- officialGemini 3.6 Flash model card
- docsGemini API release notes
- pressTechCrunch: Google releases three new Gemini models — but no 3.5 Pro
- press9to5Google: Gemini 3.6 Flash and 3.5 Flash-Lite launch, teases Gemini 4
id: 2026-07-21-gemini-3-6-flash · updated 2026-09-29 · open in the interactive timeline