Google releases Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash model in six weeks

Google's Pro model updates are seemingly paused, but there's yet another Gemini Flash today.

Google hasn't released a frontier-level Gemini Pro AI model since early 2026, but it sure loves rolling out new Gemini Flash variants. Today, Google is announcing its third Flash model release in just six weeks, making it more likely that we'll never see the promised Gemini 3.5 Pro. But no matter, says Google, because Gemini 3.8 Flash is its best reasoning and coding model yet.

Model Variations

Gemini 3.8 Flash comes in two variations:

• Standard Flash - Google describes this as a "workhorse" model that's good for anything from agentic tasks to software development.
• Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber - Runs on the same foundations but has been tuned for vulnerability detection and mitigation.

Pricing

For developers, Google has the same pitch as it did for the 3.7 Flash release just a couple of weeks ago. API access to the model is available at an "introductory rate" through the end of the year:

• $0.75 per million input tokens
• $3.75 per million output tokens

The regular price will be $1.50 / $7.50, but it's likely there will be new models available long before the price changes. Google probably sees the lower prices as a necessity given that other AI labs have recently dropped token pricing to keep increasingly wary businesses engaged with AI tools.

Performance Benchmarks

Google has offered its usual raft of benchmark numbers, which appear to show Gemini 3.8 Flash competing with (or even beating) larger and more expensive models. The numbers show a marginal improvement over Gemini 3.7 Flash in most tests, but the gains are larger in coding evaluations.