In May 2026, Google released Gemini 2.5 Flash and Flash-Lite to general availability and simultaneously opened Deep Research to free users. The most powerful AI research tool is now available to everyone β and that shift matters more than it might seem.
Google launched Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite to general availability on Vertex AI. It uses 20-30% fewer tokens than the standard Flash while maintaining reasoning, coding, and multimodal performance β and it now supports supervised fine-tuning (SFT). At the same time, Deep Research opened for free on the Flash model, and Native Audio got sharper. A significant update for cost-conscious teams and individuals alike.
In March 2026, Gemini 2.5 added file upload support to Deep Research and launched Lyria 3, a music generation model. Here are the key updates every researcher and creator needs to know.