During Alphabet’s Q2 2026 earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google needs to improve its coding and agentic coding capabilities, and that a larger Gemini 4 base model would be necessary to stay competitive at the next frontier.
These comments came a day after Google introduced Gemini 3.6 Flash and announced that Gemini 4 is currently in pretraining. Meanwhile, the unreleased Gemini 3.5 Pro remains delayed due to coding issues.
What Pichai Said #
When asked if Gemini can stay at the frontier, Pichai expressed confidence that Google still excels in many areas but recognized that coding and agentic coding require further development.
He pointed out the recent launch of 3.6 Flash as a positive step, while outlining future plans, explaining that reaching the next breakthrough depends on larger base models. Google is currently training Gemini 4, which Pichai said Google will need to compete at that level.
This aligns with his earlier comments. In May, Pichai mentioned on the Hard Fork podcast that Google was “a bit behind” in agentic coding due to the lack of a developer-facing product that generates valuable usage data collected by competitors.
The Flagship Still Isn’t Out #
Google’s Gemini 3.5 Pro hasn’t shipped yet. The company announced the 3.5 series at I/O in May, launching 3.5 Flash on the same day and saying 3.5 Pro would follow the next month.
Google now says 3.5 Pro is “currently testing with partners” and will be broadly available “as soon as it’s ready.” Bloomberg reported this month that coding performance contributed to the delay, as SEJ reported. A late June update to the model’s training data, intended to improve coding, didn’t meet expectations.
The pressure has shown up elsewhere. In June, two senior Google AI researchers, Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer and AlphaFold’s John Jumper, left for OpenAI and Anthropic, amid worries inside DeepMind about Google’s position in AI coding tools.
What Google Shipped #
Google recently released Gemini 3.6 Flash, an update to its dependable Flash tier rather than a flagship model. The company states that 3.6 Flash produces 17% fewer output tokens compared to 3.5 Flash and is more cost-effective, with enhanced coding abilities.
| Model | Current Status | Intended Role | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | Available | General-purpose Flash model | Released at Google I/O |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | Available | Updated workhorse with coding and efficiency improvements | Released July 21 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Available | Faster, lower-cost model for high-volume workloads | Released July 21 |
| Gemini 3.5 Pro | Testing with partners | Flagship model in the 3.5 series | No confirmed release date |
| Gemini 4 | In pretraining | Next-generation base model | No confirmed release date |
On DeepSWE, a coding benchmark Google cited, it scored 49%, an increase from 37% with 3.5 Flash. Google describes 3.6 Flash as the new standard workhorse, while 3.5 Flash remains available. They also introduced a more affordable 3.5 Flash-Lite tier, now being integrated into Google Search.
Why This Matters #
The most important thing is the timeline rather than how Google compares to others. They’ve already introduced Flash models in AI Mode and Search, but 3.5 Pro has slipped, and Gemini 4 has no official date yet.
Looking Ahead #
What really matters now is whether 3.5 Pro finally ships and if Google sticks to the monthly release schedule that Pichai mentioned. Successfully hitting these targets would show how well Google can turn its plans into real, shipped products.
On another note, Gemini 4 is more of a long-term goal. Google calls this pretraining process their most ambitious so far, but they haven’t set a release date for the model yet.
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