Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash renders cheap 360p drafts, then upscales the winner. That draft-then-upscale pattern cuts generative AI cost across your whole stack.
Key takeaways
- On August 28, 2026, Google shipped Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash with a 360p draft mode at roughly one-third the cost of 720p, plus 1080p and 4K upscaling.
- The reusable idea isn't the video; it's draft-then-upscale: generate cheap drafts, pick the winner, and spend expensive compute only on that one.
- It saves money because most generative work throws away several candidates, so paying premium rates for the discards is pure waste.
- The pattern generalizes: cheap-model drafts finalized by a strong model for text, low-res options upscaled for images, cheap exploration then expensive commitment for agents.
- Van Data Team's recommendation: find your priciest generate-and-select step, split it into a cheap draft pass and an expensive finalize pass, and measure cost per accepted output.
📖 Read the full guide on Van Data Team → Draft-Then-Upscale: A Generative AI Cost Pattern
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