Google Delays Gemini 3.5 Pro Again, Now Targeting July 17
Google has pushed Gemini 3.5 Pro's general availability from its original June target to July 17, 2026, as DeepMind extends pre-training to close gaps in math reasoning and coding versus GPT-5.6 and Anthropic's latest models.
Google has slipped the general availability date for Gemini 3.5 Pro a second time, moving it from an original June target to July 17, 2026. DeepMind is using the extra time for further pre-training to shore up math reasoning, coding, and long multi-step task performance before facing off against OpenAI's GPT-5.6 and Anthropic's Sonnet 5.
- Sundar Pichai said at Google I/O in May that Gemini 3.5 Pro would launch "next month"; it stayed in limited enterprise preview on Vertex AI through late June
- This is Google's second major model delivery miss of 2026, after Gemini Ultra 1.5 slipped roughly three months earlier in the year
- Early testers reportedly flagged token-efficiency issues and coding results below the flagship bar Google set at I/O
- Four senior Gemini researchers left for Anthropic between June 21 and 27, in the middle of the slip
The delay leaves GPT-5.6 and the now generally available Sonnet 5 shipping without a direct Gemini 3.5 Pro answer for another two weeks. Readers can already compare the current models head to head while Gemini 3.5 Pro finishes its extended training run.