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It\u2019s mid-August, and those who have been waiting a good chunk of the summer for the release of Gemini 3.5 Pro are getting restless.<\/p>\n
Some are calling this the \u201clongest-awaited model of 2026,\u201d since a release deadline had previously been announced much closer to the beginning of the season. Apparently, other related models have been released, but Gemini 3.5 Pro is still locked away. Additionally, there are rumors of cancellation, with outlets like Geeky Gadget<\/a> and others like Andrew.ooo<\/a> contradicting each other about whether the Google Gemini page says 3.5 Pro is \u201ccoming soon.\u201d (Take a look for yourself here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Here\u2019s some input from that latter outlet<\/a>, late in July, about what might be happening:<\/p>\n \u201cGoogle says it needs more time on coding and reliability. There\u2019s also been senior-researcher churn. Rather than rush Pro, Google shipped the workhorse 3.6 Flash \u2014 described as improved coding\/knowledge\/multimodal at lower cost, using up to 65% fewer output tokens than 3.5 Flash.\u201d<\/p>\n Widening the aperture, let\u2019s look at some of the critical context of this delay, in pondering what\u2019s next for the mega-firm amid a fast-paced and competitive LLM race.<\/p>\n Testing with Partners<\/p>\n In some internal Google reports, you can see that company reps suggest Gemini 3.5 Pro is \u201cbeing tested with partners.\u201d<\/p>\n That sounds a lot like what has happened at Anthropic, with Project Glasswing<\/a>, and OpenAI, as powerful models get corralled before being publicly launched, just because they\u2019re too powerful to be out there roaming around.<\/p>\n Google, you\u2019d think, could make a plausible case for this: that given the sentiment in the market, and the propensity of agentic models to do unpredictable things, the leadership is just taking some extra time with Gemini, on principle. But according to what I\u2019ve seen, nothing like that has been suggested.<\/p>\n Working on the Gemini App<\/p>\n Another reason for the lateness of Gemini 3.5 Pro might be that engineers are rolling out new Gemini App products instead.<\/p>\n \u201cYesterday, Google\u2019s Josh Woodward asked for what fixes Gemini app users want,\u201d reported Abner Li July 9 at 9to5Google<\/a>. \u201cThe Gemini lead today identified the top 10 requests and Google\u2019s progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Among these were: more reliability for Google Workspace integrations, deep research improvements, the removal of watermarks from Nano Banana, and fixes for mobile app scrolling bugs. So maybe the Google engineers have just been busy.<\/p>\n The AI Coders Are Here<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another wrinkle: as this project experiences enigmatic delays, Google engineers continue to report that AI is increasingly doing the work. This has led to a debate between true-believers who insist on human coding, and those who are ok with letting the AI agent handle it.<\/p>\n Could that have something to do with the delay of Gemini 3.5 Pro?<\/p>\n If the back and forth has impacted project timelines, then it\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n The Symptoms: Brain Drain, Stock Slump, Etc.<\/p>\n Some reports contend that the market is seeing troubling signs at Google, possibly relating to an inability to ship out models in a timely manner. For example, Wired reports<\/a> on Jeff Dean and other prominent people pulling up stakes and heading out to places like OpenAI and Anthropic, direct competitors.<\/p>\n At the same time, those looking at Alphabet stock are seeing about a 12% drop since January, although there\u2019s a lot of value built into the company over the past five years.<\/p>\n It\u2019s reasonable, perhaps, to surmise that Google\u2019s problems are related.<\/p>\n But this is the third deadline the company has blown for the model, and that leads some to conclude that the company is essentially going back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n