Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview appears to be headed out of AI Studio on March 31

If you’re using gemini-2.5-flash-lite-preview-09-2025 through the Gemini API or Google AI Studio, you have until March 31 to plan your next move.

Google seems to have started sending emails to developers confirming the model will be discontinued on that date. The company is moving users to Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Preview as the replacement, and the -latest alias will automatically switch over once the cutoff hits. So if you’re relying on that alias and not paying attention, your app will quietly be using a different model after March 31.

The email also makes clear that this is an AI Studio and Gemini API-only change. The model is not being retired on Vertex AI. The stable gemini-2.5-flash-lite build still has a listed retirement date of July 22, 2026, according to details on Google’s Vertex AI model versions page.

But the part that’s grinding developers’ gears is the pricing gap.

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Preview currently sits at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Preview, the model Google is pushing you toward, comes in at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens. That’s 2.5x more expensive on input and nearly 4x higher on output.

One developer commented, “I got like $4k worth of stuff to process with it. If I have to use 3.1 Flash Lite, that’ll be like $10k.” The OP, who shared the email, called 2.5 Flash-Lite “a powerhouse for a lot of tasks” and said the newer model simply doesn’t fill those shoes at that price.

Google’s own blog frames Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite as the fastest and most cost-efficient model in the Gemini 3 series, and it does score higher on intelligence benchmarks. For developers running high-volume, cost-sensitive workloads where raw output quality is secondary, that pitch falls a little flat.

There’s also some confusion around the documentation side of things. Google’s public deprecations page for the Gemini API doesn’t clearly list the March 31 date for the preview variant specifically, at least at the time of this writing. Several users in the Reddit thread said they only found out about the change because they received the email, with no clear heads-up in the model docs.

This comes just days after Google removed Gemini 3 Pro from its official lineup of models. If you haven’t gotten that email yet, check your Gemini API usage dashboard. And if you’re on the -latest alias, this one’s worth acting on before the end of the month.

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