Alphabet’s Google launched Gemini 3.7 Flash on Thursday, rolling out an aggressively priced update to its workhorse AI model just three weeks after the previous iteration, while offering no clarity on when its delayed flagship Pro model will arrive. The release lands amid a sweeping leadership overhaul at Google DeepMind and a broader company push to embed Gemini across its expanding hardware ecosystem.<\/p>\n
The new model is aimed squarely at developers and enterprises building autonomous AI systems that can plan tasks, use software tools, and execute multi-step workflows with reduced human intervention. Google is positioning Gemini 3.7 Flash as a lower-cost option for businesses, with introductory pricing of 75 cents per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens through the end of the year, half the original cost of Gemini 3.6 Flash.<\/p>\n
“It better adapts to roadblocks, clarifies intent when needed, and follows instructions with greater fidelity,” Google said in a blog post. “It thinks more diligently, putting in more effort into multi-step planning and tool calls.” The company cited improved performance on coding tasks, including debugging, issue resolution, and production-ready code generation. The model also ships with updated guardrails to prevent misuse, according to Google.<\/p>\n
Gemini 3.7 Flash is being rolled out immediately to Gemini Spark, Google’s subscription-based AI agent service available to Google AI Pro and Ultra customers in more than 160 countries.<\/p>\n
The launch comes at a precarious moment for Google’s AI ambitions. Investors have been closely watching for Gemini 3.5 Pro, the company’s premium model, as a test of whether DeepMind can keep pace with Anthropic and OpenAI. Google said in July that Gemini 3.5 Pro was being tested with partners and would arrive “soon,” but the company has yet to deliver it. The delay reportedly stems from shortcomings in programming capabilities, a factor that contributed to Alphabet shares sliding in July.<\/p>\n
While Google declined to discuss the fate of Gemini 3.5 Pro, the company has said it is already training for Gemini 4 and is encouraged by early results, raising the possibility that it may scrap the 3.5 Pro release entirely and make Gemini 4 Pro the next major launch.<\/p>\n
Leadership Overhaul and Talent Exodus<\/p>\n
The model release follows last week’s announcement that Demis Hassabis, who co-founded DeepMind and led it through Google’s 2014 acquisition, stepped aside in favor of his deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu. The new chief, who joined DeepMind in 2012 and previously served as its chief technology officer and Google’s chief AI architect, now reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai.<\/p>\n
The transition has been gradual. Over the past year, Kavukcuoglu has progressively assumed more responsibilities from Hassabis, including model development and major Gemini product launches, according to people familiar with the matter. The formal handover is widely interpreted as a signal that Google’s AI business is shifting from a research-driven posture toward one centered on product execution.<\/p>\n
Constellation Research chief analyst Ray Wang said Kavukcuoglu’s promotion indicates Google is placing greater emphasis on execution, which could translate to faster product release cycles, more experimental exploration, and a more focused product roadmap. Morningstar senior equity analyst Malik Ahmed Khan noted that under Hassabis, significant attention went to multimodal systems, world models, and health-related projects, whereas the path forward under Kavukcuoglu is likely to center on improving large language model capabilities.<\/p>\n
At the same time as the leadership change, the two original technical co-leads of Gemini quit to co-found a startup, adding to a string of high-profile departures from Google’s AI team that has raised concerns about the company’s coding and pre-training capabilities.<\/p>\n
Futurum Group’s AI lead Nick Patience said the immediate priority should be delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro and establishing a predictable release cadence, while rebuilding the programming and pre-training expert teams. “Google needs to solve not just when a model ships, but how to rebuild the talent and organizational capacity required for sustained frontier iteration,” he said.<\/p>\n
Not everyone views the departures as existential. Sebastian Mallaby, author of “The Infinity Machine,” cautioned against reading too much into the exits of a few prominent figures, noting that the Gemini team numbers in the thousands.<\/p>\n
The Hardware Bet<\/p>\n
Google’s AI push extends well beyond model releases. On Wednesday, the company unveiled the Pixel 11 family, the Pixel Watch 5, and a new $29 Pixel Tag tracker, positioning its hardware lineup as a delivery vehicle for Gemini Intelligence, a suite of AI capabilities designed to understand what users are doing on their phones and execute actions across different applications.<\/p>\n
Gemini Intelligence can connect information from messages, calendars, maps, and other Google services, then suggest or execute next steps such as checking availability, comparing travel options, or initiating restaurant reservations. Google is also expanding AI functions that operate directly within the phone’s operating system without requiring users to open a separate chatbot.<\/p>\n
Rick Osterloh, Google’s head of devices, said the company believes AI will fundamentally change how people interact with smartphones. “For the past 10 to 15 years, the way people use laptops and phones hasn’t changed much, but we think that’s about to change dramatically,” Osterloh said, describing Gemini Intelligence as “a new way of interacting with computers” that lets users “not just get information, but get things done.”<\/p>\n
The hardware push puts Google in direct competition with one of its largest AI customers. Apple is rebuilding Siri around Google’s Gemini model, with objectives similar to what Google is now showcasing on Pixel devices, including understanding personal information, recognizing screen content, and executing actions across apps. Osterloh pushed back on the notion that both experiences are equivalent. “Pixel and iPhone are clearly heading in very different directions,” he said. “Pixel’s product strategy has always been at the forefront of new technology, especially with Gemini and AI.”<\/p>\n
Google is also raising prices across its hardware lineup, betting that AI differentiation can justify premium positioning. The base Pixel 11 starts at $899, up $100 from the previous generation, though storage doubles to 256GB. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold also jumps $100 to $1,899, and the Pixel Watch 5 is up $50 to $399.<\/p>\n
ProductStarting PriceChange vs. Previous GenerationPixel 11$899+$100Pixel 11 Pro$1,099UnchangedPixel 11 Pro XL$1,299UnchangedPixel 11 Pro Fold$1,899+$100Pixel Watch 5$399+$50Pixel Tag$29New product<\/p>\n
Note: Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL pricing reflects base configurations. The Pixel 11 launches August 20.<\/p>\n
Osterloh acknowledged that component shortages are adding cost pressure. “There’s clearly a shortage of RAM and flash memory,” he said, predicting that “in the short term, all companies will need to raise prices.”<\/p>\n
Counterpoint Research said AI currently ranks around sixth or seventh among reasons consumers upgrade smartphones, but its importance has risen in recent surveys as Gemini and Apple Intelligence capabilities expand. Research director Tarun Pathak said converting growing interest into actual upgrades will require compelling use cases and higher consumer awareness, and he expects Apple Intelligence to serve as a catalyst for iPhone upgrades given Apple’s larger installed base.<\/p>\n
For Alphabet, the strategic value of hardware lies less in displacing the iPhone than in controlling how Gemini reaches users. Owning the devices gives Google direct influence over how deeply its AI can be embedded in everyday tasks, and how quickly it can ship AI experiences without depending on another company’s platform decisions. Apple has demonstrated how profitable an integrated ecosystem of hardware, software, and services can be. Google now owns phones, watches, earbuds, trackers, its own chips, and one of the world’s most important AI platforms. The question is whether Gemini can finally give Google the consumer pull that its hardware efforts have long lacked.<\/p>\n
The immediate challenge, however, remains at the frontier. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has in recent months urged key AI staff to go all in on the Gemini model as the company seeks to close the gap with rivals. Khan said Anthropic and OpenAI are ahead of Google in coding capability by “more than one position.” Google disputes the characterization, arguing that the path to AGI spans agents, coding, robotics, and world models, and has formed an internal team called Code Strike to strengthen its programming capabilities. But for now, the market is waiting to see whether the new leadership can translate those ambitions into a flagship model that reestablishes Google at the front of the pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alphabet’s Google launched Gemini 3.7 Flash on Thursday, rolling out an aggressively priced update to its workhorse AI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1483,53,319,5044,7718,36602,66063,132,7543,28175,157,25479,141],"class_list":["post-139463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-google","tag-alphabet","tag-anthropic","tag-apple","tag-deepmind","tag-demis-hassabis","tag-gemini-3-5-pro","tag-gemini-3-7-flash","tag-google","tag-google-deepmind","tag-koray-kavukcuoglu","tag-openai","tag-pixel-11","tag-sundar-pichai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}