Key Takeaways

• Google released Gemini 3.5 Flash at Google I/O, marking its general availability.
• The new model is significantly more expensive than previous versions, with a notable price increase of around 6x for the 3.5 Flash compared to 3.1 Flash-Lite.
• Google plans to use Gemini 3.5 Flash across multiple products including Google Search, AI Studio, and Android Studio.
• A new Interaction API is in beta, intended as a counterpart to OpenAI‘s Responses mechanism for managing server-side history.

The Price Has Gone Up

Gemini 3.5 Flash has seen a substantial price increase from previous versions. The new model is priced at $1.50/million input and $9/million output, approaching the cost of Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro ($2/million input and $12/million output).

Google anticipates rolling out Gemini 3.5 Pro “next month” at an even higher price point.

• The previous models in the “Flash” family were Gemini 3 Flash Preview and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite.
• A price comparison chart is available at this link.

A Pelican on a Bicycle

When the Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle request was made to the Gemini API, it returned a highly stylized and detailed image. The cost for this query was 11 input tokens and 14,403 output tokens, totaling just under 13 cents.

The resulting image features a funky-looking pelican with retro aviator sunglasses. It’s riding on a bicycle with twisted frame details and missing components like the pedal-to-back wheel connection. A bike lamp illuminates the road ahead of them.

That pelican looks like it’s in Miami for a crypto conference.