With Gemini 3.5 Flash, Google bets its next AI wave on agents, not chatbots

Google launched connected Tuesday Gemini 3.5 Flash, a caller AI exemplary that the institution says is its strongest yet for coding and autonomous AI agents. The model, which was introduced astatine the company’s yearly I/O developer conference, tin independently execute coding pipelines, negociate probe projects, and, successful interior tests, physique an operating strategy wholly from scratch.

The merchandise signals Google’s displacement from pitching AI arsenic a conversational instrumentality to AI arsenic an agentic tool. It’s not conscionable answering questions, but planning, building, and iterating connected existent enactment with minimal quality input. 

“3.5 Flash offers an unthinkable operation of prime and debased latency,” Koray Kavukcuoglu, DeepMind’s main technologist, told reporters connected Monday up of the nationalist launch. “It outperforms our latest frontier model, 3.1 Pro, connected astir each the benchmarks,” including coding, agentic tasks, and multimodal reasoning. 

He added that it is 4 times faster than different frontier models, a velocity that’s perfect for coding and agentic tasks, but that Google has “taken it to different level” by processing an optimized mentation of Flash that’s 12 times faster with the aforesaid quality.

That velocity is cardinal to Flash’s plan for agentic work, wherever aggregate AI agents tally astatine the aforesaid clip connected long-running tasks, according to Kavukcuoglu. On signifier astatine I/O, Google technologist Varun Mohan, demonstrated agents spawning disconnected to enactment connected abstracted components earlier coming unneurotic to physique a afloat operating strategy wrong Antigravity, the company’s agentic improvement level and IDE.

Image Credits:Google

Kavukcuoglu said Flash 3.5 was co-developed with Antigravity truthful that agents could person a “native situation wherever they tin live, work, and execute.”

At I/O, Google released Antigravity 2.0, a standalone desktop exertion designed astir agent-first development. 

The gains are showing up beyond demos. Google says 3.5 Flash’s agentic capabilities are already creating interaction among partners, similar banks and fintechs automating multi-week workflows, oregon information subject teams uncovering insights successful analyzable information environments.

The exemplary tin tally autonomously for aggregate hours, though Tulsee Doshi, Google’s elder manager and caput of product, said it volition astatine times intermission and inquire for idiosyncratic input erstwhile it hits a determination constituent oregon support contented that requires quality judgment.

When Google releases its forthcoming 3.5 Pro model, the 2 are designed to enactment successful tandem. 

“3.5 Pro becomes your orchestrator, your planner, and past it really tin leverage Flash to beryllium the assorted sub-agents,” Doshi told TechCrunch. “I deliberation it truly comes down to wherever bash you truly privation that reasoning power, wherever you really privation that larger exemplary that tin truly propulsion connected the reasoning broadside versus wherever bash you person tasks that truly bash merit bully brute unit instrumentality usage capabilities?”

3.5 Flash is present the default exemplary successful the Gemini app and successful AI Mode successful Search globally. At I/O, Google besides announced agentic capabilities coming to Search, letting users create, customize, and negociate AI agents straight connected the platform. The caller exemplary volition besides powerfulness Gemini Spark, Google’s caller idiosyncratic AI cause designed to tally 24/7 to assistance consumers negociate their integer life.

Providing that level of AI capableness for mean consumers comes with scrutiny. Google is presently facing a suit aft a antheral astir committed a wide casualty lawsuit and died by termination pursuing weeks of chatting with Gemini past year.

The implications for harm lone turn erstwhile making almighty autonomous agents disposable much broadly. Google says Gemini 3.5 has strengthened cyber and CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) safeguards and is amended calibrated to prosecute with delicate questions alternatively than garbage them outright. 

Gemini 3.5 Flash is disposable mostly contiguous via Antigravity, the Gemini API, and Gemini Enterprise, arsenic good arsenic done the Gemini app and AI mode successful Search.