Google announces Gemini 3.6 Flash and cybersecurity AI, teases 3.5 Pro and Gemini 4

Ars Technica AI · Ryan Whitwam · 2026-07-21

Google revealed three new Gemini AI models including the cybersecurity-focused 3.5 Flash Cyber and a successor to the already-deprecated 3.5 Flash, while Gemini 3.5 Pro—originally promised for June—remains in testing.

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Google Rapidly Iterates Gemini with 3.6 Flash Family and Restricted Cybersecurity Variant

Extraction

Topics: gemini-modelsmodel-releasegoogle-aicybersecurity-ai

Claims

Gemini 3.5 Flash has already been deprecated and replaced by 3.6 Flash, despite having been the centerpiece of Google I/O in May.
Gemini 3.5 Pro, which was supposed to launch in June, has not been released and remains in testing with partners.
Google's changes in 3.6 Flash were made in response to user feedback indicating 3.5 Flash underperformed on code generation relative to Google's promises.
Google's intense focus on token efficiency to reduce business costs may have contributed to the coding performance shortfall in 3.5 Flash.

Key quotes

Gemini 3.5 Flash, which was the star of the show at I/O, has already been deprecated.

In general, Gemini 3.5 Flash didn't appear to live up to Google's promises around code generation.

Perhaps that is simply a consequence of Google's intense focus on efficiency as businesses have started to fret over the cost of AI tokens.