Gemini 3.5 Flash: more expensive, but Google plan to use it for everything

<p>Today at Google I/O, Google <a href="https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-5/">released Gemini 3.5 Flash</a>. This one skipped the <code>-preview</code> modifier and went straight to general availability, and Google appear to be using it for a whole lot of their key products:</p> <blockquote> <p>3.5 Flash is available today to billions of people globally:</p> <ul> <li>For everyone via the Gemini app and AI Mode in <a href="https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026">Google Search</a> </li> <li>For developers in our agent-first development platform Google Antigravity and Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Android Studio</li> <li>For enterprises in Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and Gemini Enterprise.</li> </ul> </blockquote> <p>As usual with Gemini, the most interesting details are tucked away in the <a href="https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/whats-new-gemini-3.5">What's new in Gemini 3.5 Flash</a> developer documentation. It mostly has the same set of platform features as the previous Gemini 3.x series, albeit with no <a href="https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/computer-use">computer use</a>. The model ID is <code>gemini-3.5-flash</code>. The knowledge cut-off is January 2025, and it supports 1,048,576 input tokens and 65,536 maximum output tokens.</p> <p>Google are also pushing a new <a href="https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/interactions">Interactions API</a>, currently in beta, which looks to me like their version of the patterns introduced by <a href="https://developers.openai.com/api/reference/responses/overview">OpenAI Responses</a> - in particular server-side history management.</p> <h4 id="the-price-has-gone-up">The price has gone up</h4> <p>Gemini 3.5 Flash is accompanied by a notable price bump. The previous models in the "Flash" family were <a href="https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models/gemini-3-flash-preview">Gemini 3 Flash Preview</a> and <a href="https://ai