Google shipped three Gemini models in July — and delayed the one everyone wanted

Google released three models on 21 July 2026. None of them is the one that was expected.

What actually shipped

• Gemini 3.6 Flash — the new workhorse. Better at coding, knowledge work and multimodal tasks, and it uses up to 17% fewer tokens than 3.5 Flash, which makes it cheaper to run than the model it replaces.
• Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite — the cheapest model in the range, for high-volume simple work.
• Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber — a specialised version tuned for finding and fixing security vulnerabilities.

For context, Gemini 3.5 Flash itself only arrived at Google I/O in May 2026, where it beat Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agentic benchmarks at four times the speed. The Flash line has moved quickly.

The model that did not ship

There is still no Gemini 3.5 Pro. It has been delayed over coding performance, and Google has instead pointed at Gemini 4 further out. If you have been holding off on a subscription waiting for 3.5 Pro, stop holding — there is no date.

Does this change what you should buy?

Not really, and we would rather say that plainly than manufacture a reason to sell you something. The Flash models are mostly consumed through the API by developers. If you use Gemini through the app, you will see improvements arrive without doing anything.

Our reasoning for Gemini has not moved: it is the best value if you already live in Gmail and Drive, because the 5TB of Google storage bundled with it is worth roughly half the subscription on its own. That is a storage problem being solved alongside an AI one.

Gemini Pro is 1,299 ETB a month with us, or 13,199 ETB for a year, which works out at about 1,100 a month. If you are a student submitting work through Google tools, this is usually the one we point you at.

Written by the Bezuale Solutions team in Addis Ababa. Questions? Message us on Telegram.