Google launches Gemini 3.8 Flash with agentic upgrades

Google has released Gemini 3.8 Flash just weeks after the debut of its predecessor. The new model is engineered to perform more reasoning steps on complex tasks and iteratively call tools. While Google has kept the introductory pricing identical to Gemini 3.7 Flash, at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens, the company warned that the model might consume more tokens to maximize performance at higher effort levels. Developers seeking to minimize token usage can continue using Gemini 3.7 Flash.

Early analysis from Artificial Analysis indicates that Gemini 3.8 Flash is highly cost-effective for its intelligence level, though actual costs are roughly 40 percent higher than Gemini 3.7 Flash. This increase is driven by a 30 percent rise in output tokens per task and more turns during agentic evaluations. John Ennis, CEO of Aigora.ai, noted that the model delivers coding quality comparable to Anthropic's Opus 5 but at a fraction of the cost and with superior speed, making it highly useful for tasks like generating remotion videos.

Google reports significant improvements for software engineering and autonomous AI agents. Gemini 3.8 Flash outperformed its predecessor and rival models, including Anthropic's Fable 5, on the DeepSWE v1.1 software engineering benchmark. It also led competitors on the Vals Finance Agent V2 and Harvey's Legal Agent benchmarks. To mitigate risks, Google has built in safeguards against misuse in cyber offense and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear domains.

Alongside the standard model, Google introduced Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber and the Fairwind Program. This program is restricted to governments and 650 trusted partners, including CrowdStrike and the Center for Internet Security. It grants access to the cyber model and Google's CodeMender agent, which autonomously identifies and patches vulnerabilities. Gemini 3.8 Flash is currently available to developers, enterprise clients, and consumers holding Google AI Pro or Ultra subscriptions.