Gemini 3.5 Pro set for June debut with 2M tokens
Google confirmed that Gemini 3.5 Pro, the company's flagship AI model, is targeting a June 2026 general availability launch after a limited preview period. The model promises a 2-million token context window and built-in Deep Think reasoning capabilities, positioning it to directly compete with Anthropic's Claude Opus and OpenAI's GPT-5.5. Sundar Pichai announced the model at Google I/O on May 19, noting that Pro is designed to address the reasoning gap that users experienced with Flash. The model features multimodal capabilities and improved agentic coding performance, with pricing expected to be around $9 per million tokens when it goes GA. This launch comes as Google accelerates its AI roadmap to counter competitive pressures from Anthropic's $965 billion valuation and OpenAI's rapid iteration.
For builders in MENA, this is the model to watch for enterprise applications - its Arabic performance and multimodal capabilities could finally make AI-native applications feasible for our region's diverse market.
What makes Gemini 3.5 Pro different from the free version?
2M token context window (vs 1M in Flash), Deep Think reasoning, and improved agentic coding capabilities.
When will it be available for MENA developers?
Google hasn't specified regional rollout timing, but Vertex AI typically deploys globally within weeks of US launch.