Google says Gemini 3.5 Flash rivals ‘large flagship models’ for coding and agent tasks

Google has unveiled Gemini 3.5, starting with the Gemini 3.5 Flash model that promises to outperform Gemini 3.1 Pro in real-world agent and coding tasks. “3.5 Flash delivers cutting-edge intelligence at exceptional speed, proving you no longer need to trade quality for latency. »

Announced at Google I/O 2026, this will be Google’s default AI model (not to be confused with Flash-Lite), designed to deliver better speed than current Gemini Pro models at a more affordable price. The trade-off is lower performance than the 3.5 Pro model (coming next month) in tasks that require deep reasoning and deep understanding of context.

However, Google narrowed the tradeoff between the Pro and Flash models, saying Gemini 3.5 Flash “delivers intelligence that rivals large flagship models on multiple dimensions.” It outperforms the current Gemini 3.1 Pro model in terms of coding and agent benchmarks such as Terminal-Bench 2.1 (76.2%), MCP Atlas-scale tool usage (83.6%), and multimodal understanding with 84.2% on CharXiv reasoning. In terms of token production per second, it is four times faster than other frontier models, according to Google.

All of this makes Flash 3.5 ideal for long-term agent tasks, achieving what used to take weeks in “a fraction of the time,” Google wrote. “Under supervision, it can reliably execute multi-step workflows and coding tasks while maintaining peak performance. » He added that partners, including banks and fintechs, have used it to automate multi-week workflows.

Google noted that 3.5 Flash is now the default model for the Gemini app and for AI mode in search worldwide. The Gemini Spark personal AI agent, rolling out to testers today, also runs on Flash 3.5. At the same time, Google said it has strengthened Gemini 3.5’s cyber and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) protection so that it is less likely to generate harmful content (or mistakenly refuse to respond to safe queries). Google detailed the new model’s enhanced agent coding capabilities in a new blog post.

Gemini 3.5 Flash is now “generally available through Google Antigravity, the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and Gemini Enterprise. It is also now available to everyone in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search,” Google said.

There’s no word yet on pricing for the paid tiers. As for Gemini 3.5 Pro, Google said: “It’s already in use internally and we look forward to rolling it out next month.” »