In a development that’s sending ripples through the AI community, Google’s highly anticipated Gemini 3 Flash appears to have been quietly deployed on the popular LMSYS Chatbot Arena (LM Arena) under the codename “oceanstone.” The stealth release, first highlighted in social media discussions on September 15, suggests Google is conducting rigorous pre-launch testing for what could be its next-generation lightweight language model. While not officially confirmed by Google DeepMind, early indicators point to impressive performance, positioning “oceanstone” as a potential frontrunner in efficiency and speed.
The buzz ignited with a viral X (formerly Twitter) post from AI engineer Mark Kretschmann (@mark_k), who on September 15 announced: “Google Gemini 3 Flash was secretly released on LM Arena as codename ‘oceanstone’ 🤫.” The post quickly garnered over 1,200 likes and 50 reposts, sparking widespread speculation. Kretschmann, known for his insights into AI benchmarks, didn’t provide screenshots but referenced the model’s appearance on the arena’s leaderboard, where users anonymously battle AI models in blind comparisons to generate Elo ratings based on human preferences.
Subsequent posts amplified the news. Kol Tregaskes (@koltregaskes) shared a screenshot of the LM Arena interface showing “oceanstone” in the rankings, questioning if it’s Gemini 3 Flash or a new Gemma variant. An anonymous internal source, cited in a thread by @synthwavedd, described “oceanstone” as a “3.0 S-sized model” – implying it’s in the same compact size class as the current Gemini 2.5 Flash, optimized for low-latency tasks like agentic workflows and multimodal processing. This aligns with Google’s pattern of using codenames for testing; for instance, the recent Gemini 2.5 Flash Image was tested as “nano-banana” before its August 2025 public reveal, where it dominated image generation leaderboards with a record 171-point Elo lead.
LM Arena, a crowdsourced platform with millions of user votes, is a key testing ground for AI models. “Oceanstone” reportedly debuted late on September 15, climbing ranks rapidly in categories like coding, reasoning, and general chat. Early user feedback on X praises its speed and coherence, with one developer noting it outperforms Gemini 2.5 Flash in quick-response scenarios without sacrificing quality. Turkish AI researcher Mehmet Eren Dikmen (@ErenAILab) echoed the excitement: “Gemini 3.0 Flash modeli Oceanstone adı altında LmArena’da deneniyor. Sonunda bu uzamış araya bir son veriyoruz.” (Translation: “Finally, we’re ending this long wait – news is picking up!”)
This isn’t Google’s first rodeo with secret arena drops. Past examples include “nightwhisper” and “dayhush” for unreleased Gemini iterations, as discussed in Reddit’s r/Bard community back in April. The timing is intriguing: It follows a flurry of Google AI announcements, including Veo 3 video generation in early September and Gemma 3’s March release. With competitors like OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 pushing boundaries, Gemini 3 Flash could emphasize “thinking” capabilities – Google’s hybrid reasoning mode that balances cost, latency, and accuracy.
Google has yet to comment, but developers can access similar previews via the Gemini API in AI Studio. Artificial Intelligence news account @cloudbooklet urged: “New Arena Model Alert! A stealth entry just dropped: oceanstone 💎✨ Is this Gemini 3 Flash or a brand-new Gemma variant?” Community guesses lean toward Gemini 3, given the “Flash” branding for fast models.
As testing continues, “oceanstone” could reshape the lightweight AI landscape. Stay tuned – if history repeats, an official unveiling might follow soon, potentially integrating with Vertex AI for enterprise use. For now, AI enthusiasts are flocking to LM Arena to vote and probe its limits.
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