I wonder how big the Pro model is that Google is using behind the scenes to train these smaller ones.
Going on baseless speculation, the lack of accompanying pro models with these flash releases either means: 1) the model is too big to be economical, 2) google doesn't have the compute to serve the big model, 3) their big model has too many alignment issues to serve to the public.
edit: looks like benchmarks are up on https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/gemini-3-6-flash. It's solidly middle-of-pack. However, if you want to be most fair to flash, look at the intelligence vs time per task and intelligence vs outputspeed benchmarks. This is a very fast model.
edit 2: I use antigravity from time to time and in my experience, 3.5 flash is an underrated model, so long as you know what it's good for. It's very good at frontend (much better than gpt 5.5) and it's fast, so it's a great tool for iteration. I expect 3.6 to be no different.
postalcoder
Spent half an hour just now benchmarking it against my current 3.5 Flash pipeline excited only see it regressed slightly (0.1% - 0.2% at most, for feature extraction work)
Seems like this is mostly a cost play by Google, hoping this doesn't bring 3.5 Flash capabilities to an end of life, and that 3.6 catches up or gets better.
hmokiguess
Google somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of success with their AI products.
They literally forced me and my company out of Antigravity by phasing out AI Ultra subscription without any proper product follow-up. Antigravity IDE cannot even have poweruser subscriptions now from Google Workspace an Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform cannot be attached to Antigravity IDE.
Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform has an incredibly abysmal setup process, and if I want to limit spending per-user I have to create projects per user. The fact that you cannot activate Anthropic models on it if the billing still has free credits is almost a joke.
I was a big proponent of Google and Gemini, but they left us reeling with their abrupt product decisions. Forced us to buy $200 subscriptions directly from Anthropic/OpenAI.
stonewhite
It's a bit disheartening to see no comparison to other models here - and I'm not sure this pushes the curve anywhere. 3.6 flash is more expensive than GLM 5.2 - but seemingly worse, although this post is really light (lite?) on details.
It seemed for a time that Google had finally gotten the ball rolling, but I'm doubting that more and more as time passes. We'll see what happens with 3.5 pro I suppose.
m_w_
Pelicans for 3.6 Flash and 3.5 Flash-Lite (Cyber isn't available to me through the API yet.)
> Beyond today’s releases, Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently testing with partners and we plan to make it broadly available as soon as it’s ready.
> We have started our most ambitious pre-training run yet, for Gemini 4, and are excited by the progress.
primaprashant
Really, what's up with Gemini still not supporting connectors/MCPs/plugins/whatever-they're-called-this-month on web? It makes it a non-starter for any kind of serious use.
lilytweed
It's scary relying on Google's models.
I have a very price sensitive workload that used to run on flash 2.5 lite - it's deprecated now.
The replacement 3.1 flash lite is a lot more expensive, but now also has a sunset date.
3.5 flash lite is even more expensive.
So the price is rising and you have no choice but to keep paying more and more.
swe_dima
It is both less intelligent and more expensive than GLM-5.2, while being closed weight.
comments (10)
Going on baseless speculation, the lack of accompanying pro models with these flash releases either means: 1) the model is too big to be economical, 2) google doesn't have the compute to serve the big model, 3) their big model has too many alignment issues to serve to the public.
edit: looks like benchmarks are up on https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/gemini-3-6-flash. It's solidly middle-of-pack. However, if you want to be most fair to flash, look at the intelligence vs time per task and intelligence vs outputspeed benchmarks. This is a very fast model.
edit 2: I use antigravity from time to time and in my experience, 3.5 flash is an underrated model, so long as you know what it's good for. It's very good at frontend (much better than gpt 5.5) and it's fast, so it's a great tool for iteration. I expect 3.6 to be no different.
postalcoder
Seems like this is mostly a cost play by Google, hoping this doesn't bring 3.5 Flash capabilities to an end of life, and that 3.6 catches up or gets better.
hmokiguess
They literally forced me and my company out of Antigravity by phasing out AI Ultra subscription without any proper product follow-up. Antigravity IDE cannot even have poweruser subscriptions now from Google Workspace an Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform cannot be attached to Antigravity IDE.
Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform has an incredibly abysmal setup process, and if I want to limit spending per-user I have to create projects per user. The fact that you cannot activate Anthropic models on it if the billing still has free credits is almost a joke.
I was a big proponent of Google and Gemini, but they left us reeling with their abrupt product decisions. Forced us to buy $200 subscriptions directly from Anthropic/OpenAI.
stonewhite
It seemed for a time that Google had finally gotten the ball rolling, but I'm doubting that more and more as time passes. We'll see what happens with 3.5 pro I suppose.
m_w_
https://tools.simonwillison.net/markdown-svg-renderer#url=ht...
simonw
2.5 Flash: $0.3 / $2.5
3.0 Flash: $0.5 / $3
3.5 Flash: $1.5 / $9
3.6 Flash: $1.5 / $7.5
---
2.5 Flash-Lite: $0.1 / $0.4
3.1 Flash-Lite: $0.25 / $1.5
3.5 Flash-Lite: $0.3 / $2.5
primaprashant
> Beyond today’s releases, Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently testing with partners and we plan to make it broadly available as soon as it’s ready.
> We have started our most ambitious pre-training run yet, for Gemini 4, and are excited by the progress.
primaprashant
lilytweed
I have a very price sensitive workload that used to run on flash 2.5 lite - it's deprecated now.
The replacement 3.1 flash lite is a lot more expensive, but now also has a sunset date.
3.5 flash lite is even more expensive.
So the price is rising and you have no choice but to keep paying more and more.
swe_dima
jgbuddy