Google published a deprecation notice in its Gemini API release notes on October 6: the gemini-3.1-flash-image model will be shut down on October 29, 2026, with developers told to migrate to gemini-nano-banana-2.1. The model was released on May 28, 2026, so it will have lived 154 days — with only 23 days of notice before retirement.

That is an unusually short lifespan compared with the 2025-era gemini-2.5-flash-image on the same deprecation table, which runs until March 15, 2027 — 529 days of service. The table names gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image as the recommended replacement for that older model, and gemini-3-pro-image, released alongside the now-retired model, has no shutdown date.

The quick retirement is a practical heads-up for developers still pinned to the model: any app built on gemini-3.1-flash-image stops working on October 29, and the migration target is Google's new Nano Banana 2.1 image model.