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Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#171

Post by herpderperator »

alwillis wrote: post #170
herpderperator wrote: post #164

Serious question: If it's an improved 2.5 model, why don't they call it version 2.6? Seems annoying to have to remember if you're using the old 2.5 or the new 2.5. Kind of like when Apple released the third-gen iPad many years ago and simply called it the "new iPad" without a number.

It's pretty common to refer to models by the month and year they were released. For example, the latest Gemini 2.5 Flash is known as "google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-2025" [1]. [1]: https://openrouter.ai/google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-202...

Or, you know, just Gemini 2.6 Flash. I don't recall the 2.5 version having a date associated with it when it came out, though maybe they are using dates now. In marketing, at least, it's always known as Gemini 2.5 Flash/Pro.

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#172

Post by mcintyre1994 »

jjani wrote: post #42
ashwindharne wrote: post #27

Google seems to be the main foundation model provider that's really focusing on the latency/TPS/cost dimensions. Anthropic/OpenAI are really making strides in model intelligence, but underneath some critical threshold of performance, the really long thinking times make workflows feel a lot worse in collaboration-style tools, vs a much snappier but slightly less intelligent model. It's a delicate balance, because thes…

Can't agree with that. Gemini doesn't lead just on price/performance - ironically it's the best "normie" model most of the time, despite it's lack of popularity with them until very recent. It's bad at agentic stuff, especially coding. Incomparably so compared to Claude and now GPT-5. But if it's just about asking it random stuff, and especially going on for very long in the same conversation - which non-tech users h…

Google also has a lot of very useful structured data from search that they’re surely going to figure out how to use at some point. Gemini is useless at finding hotels, but it says it’s using Google’s Hotel data, and I’m sure at some point it’ll get good at using it. Same with flights too. If a lot of LLM usage is going to be better search, then all the structured data Google have for search should surely be a useful advantage.

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#173

Post by brap »

driese wrote: post #141
davidmckayv wrote: post #53

This really captures something I've been experiencing with Gemini lately. The models are genuinely capable when they work properly, but there's this persistent truncation issue that makes them unreliable in practice. I've been running into it consistently, responses that just stop mid-sentence, not because of token limits or content filters, but what appears to be a bug in how the model signals completion. It's been…

Small things like this or the fact that AI studio still has issues with simple scrolling confuse me. How does such a brilliant tool still lack such basic things?

The scrolling in AI Studio is an absolute nightmare and somehow they managed to make it worse.

It’s so annoying that you have this super capable model but you interact with it using an app that is complete ass

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#175

Post by kingo55 »

herpderperator wrote: post #171
alwillis wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty common to refer to models by the month and year they were released. For example, the latest Gemini 2.5 Flash is known as "google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-2025" [1]. [1]: https://openrouter.ai/google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-202...

Or, you know, just Gemini 2.6 Flash. I don't recall the 2.5 version having a date associated with it when it came out, though maybe they are using dates now. In marketing, at least, it's always known as Gemini 2.5 Flash/Pro.

It had a date, but I also agree this is extremely confusing. Even semver 2.5.1 would be clearer IMO.

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#176

Post by JumpCrisscross »

herpderperator wrote: post #164

Serious question: If it's an improved 2.5 model, why don't they call it version 2.6? Seems annoying to have to remember if you're using the old 2.5 or the new 2.5. Kind of like when Apple released the third-gen iPad many years ago and simply called it the "new iPad" without a number.

Maybe they’re signalling it’s more of a bug fix?

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#177

Post by zamalek »

simonw wrote: post #74

I added support to these models to my llm-gemini plugin, so you can run them like this (using uvx so no need to install anything first): export LLM_GEMINI_KEY='...' uvx --isolated --with llm-gemini llm -m gemini-flash-lite-latest 'An epic poem about frogs at war with ducks' Release notes: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/releases/tag/0.26 Pelicans: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/issues/104#issuecomment...

I wonder if [good examples of] SVGs of pelicans on bikes are "being introduced" into training sets. Some of the engineers who work on this stuff are the kind to hang out here.

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#178

Post by simonw »

zamalek wrote: post #177
simonw wrote: post #74

I added support to these models to my llm-gemini plugin, so you can run them like this (using uvx so no need to install anything first): export LLM_GEMINI_KEY='...' uvx --isolated --with llm-gemini llm -m gemini-flash-lite-latest 'An epic poem about frogs at war with ducks' Release notes: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/releases/tag/0.26 Pelicans: https://github.com/simonw/llm-gemini/issues/104#issuecomment...

I wonder if [good examples of] SVGs of pelicans on bikes are "being introduced" into training sets. Some of the engineers who work on this stuff are the kind to hang out here.

It's possible, but honestly I've never seen a decent vector illustration of a pelican on a bicycle myself so they'd have to work pretty hard to find one!

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#179

Post by ainch »

omarspira wrote: post #50
ashwindharne wrote: post #27

Google seems to be the main foundation model provider that's really focusing on the latency/TPS/cost dimensions. Anthropic/OpenAI are really making strides in model intelligence, but underneath some critical threshold of performance, the really long thinking times make workflows feel a lot worse in collaboration-style tools, vs a much snappier but slightly less intelligent model. It's a delicate balance, because thes…

I would be surprised if this dichotomy you're painting holds up to scrutiny. My understanding is Gemini is not far behind on "intelligence", certainly not in a way that leaves obvious doubt over where they will be over the next iteration/model cycles, where I would expect them to at least continue closing the gap. I'd be curious if you have some benchmarks to share that suggest otherwise. Meanwhile, afaik something G…

Gemini 2.5-Pro was great when it released, but o3 and GPT-5 both eclipsed it for me—the tool use/search improvements open up so many use cases that Gemini fails at.

Re: Improved Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite

#180

Post by relatedtitle »

alwillis wrote: post #170
herpderperator wrote: post #164

Serious question: If it's an improved 2.5 model, why don't they call it version 2.6? Seems annoying to have to remember if you're using the old 2.5 or the new 2.5. Kind of like when Apple released the third-gen iPad many years ago and simply called it the "new iPad" without a number.

It's pretty common to refer to models by the month and year they were released. For example, the latest Gemini 2.5 Flash is known as "google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-2025" [1]. [1]: https://openrouter.ai/google/gemini-2.5-flash-preview-09-202...

I'm pretty sure Google just does that for preview models and they drop the date from the name when it's released.
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