Google ships Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash release in six weeks

Google released Gemini 3.8 Flash on September 2, 2026, three weeks after 3.7 Flash. It holds 3.7 Flash's introductory price of $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output through December 31, 2026; standard pricing of $1.50 and $7.50 applies from January 1, 2027. It takes text, image, audio, video and PDF input, with a 1M context window and 64K output. A second variant, Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber, targets vulnerability detection and patching, gated behind Google's Fairwind Program.

Why it matters

The workhorse tier is where production spend actually lands, and Google has now shipped three of them in six weeks at a flat price. The dated expiry is the part worth writing down: the rate doubles on January 1, 2027, which is inside the planning horizon of anything being budgeted now.

Who should care

Teams running high-volume inference, and anyone costing an AI feature past this year

What you can do

Model your 2027 unit costs at $1.50 and $7.50 rather than today's rate, then decide whether the introductory window is worth migrating for.