Google ships Gemini 3.6 Flash and two other new models, but still no Gemini 3.5 Pro

1:15 PM · July 27, 2026

Google DeepMind released three new Gemini models on July 21, 2026: Gemini 3.6 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, and Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber, but pointedly did not update its flagship Gemini Pro line, which last saw a major release in February. Gemini 3.6 Flash is pitched as Google's everyday “workhorse model,” with improved coding, knowledge work, and multimodal performance and up to 17 percent lower token usage than its predecessor, while Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite targets high-throughput, latency-sensitive jobs like agentic search and document processing at a lower price point. Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber is a narrower release, fine-tuned specifically to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and Google is restricting it to governments and trusted partners through a limited pilot rather than a general release. The absence of a Gemini 3.5 Pro update is notable because rivals have kept shipping frontier-tier models through the summer, with OpenAI releasing GPT-5.5 and GPT-5.6 and Anthropic shipping Claude Opus 4.8 and Claude Opus 5 in the same window. Google DeepMind product lead Logan Kilpatrick said the team is “currently testing Gemini 3.5 Pro with partners” and expects it to “land soon,” while confirming work has already begun on Gemini 4. The staggered release suggests Google is prioritizing efficiency and agent-oriented mid-tier models while it works through capability issues on its most powerful tier.