Gemini 3.8 Flash ships; cyber variant is gated
Google's new Flash model starts at $0.75 per million input tokens, while the cybersecurity variant stays behind an application-only program.
Symbolic image: highlighted blocks of code are reviewed on two monitors while status lights blink on a server rack behind a glass partition.
Google made Gemini 3.8 Flash broadly available on September 2, 2026, and split off the security variant 3.8 Flash Cyber, which ships only through the Fairwind program for vetted defenders, government agencies and critical-infrastructure operators.
At a glance
- Introductory pricing: $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens.
- Introductory pricing expires December 31, 2026; Google lists $1.50 input and $7.50 output per million tokens after that.
- CWE-Bench (automated patching): 47.2 percent pass@1. HLE-Verified: 54.9 percent.
- Google reports a success rate above 70 percent on real-world vulnerability discovery across 20 programming languages.
- 3.8 Flash Cyber is not served through the open API — access runs through the Fairwind program by application.
Google announced two models on September 2, 2026 that share a name but not a distribution path. Gemini 3.8 Flash goes out broadly — Google Antigravity, AI Studio, Android Studio and Stitch, plus Gemini Enterprise and the Google AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions. Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber does not.
Read the price tag first
Gemini 3.8 Flash opens at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens. Those are introductory terms that expire on December 31, 2026; Google lists $1.50 and $7.50 afterward. Any 2027 cost model built on today's number is off by a factor of two.
The benchmark sheet
On automated patching, Google reports 47.2 percent pass@1 on CWE-Bench and 54.9 percent on HLE-Verified. For finding real vulnerabilities, the company claims a success rate above 70 percent across 20 programming languages. It says the cyber variant beats its predecessor, 3.5 Flash Cyber, on CyberGym, and that the model places ahead of larger frontier systems on DeepSWE v1.1.
Every one of those figures comes from Google's own announcement, and no independent replication exists as of this writing. The announcement does not state a context-window size, and its claim about prompt-injection robustness is described as an improvement without a comparison number.
Fairwind is the actual news
The distribution decision matters more than the scores. A model that locates vulnerabilities and writes patches cuts both ways: the capability that speeds up a defender also shortens an attacker's work. Google's response is to keep 3.8 Flash Cyber off the open API entirely.
Access instead runs through the Fairwind program, aimed at vetted defenders, government bodies and critical-infrastructure operators. That moves a boundary usually drawn in terms-of-service language. Rather than forbidding a capability by contract, the vendor declines to ship it outside a chosen set of customers. How rigorous the vetting is cannot be judged from outside — the criteria are not public.
What this changes for buyers
In the near term the effect is arithmetic. A fast model at $0.75 per million input tokens lowers the point at which high-volume classification, extraction and summarization jobs pencil out — though only until the end of the year.
For security teams the second half of the announcement carries more weight. Access to 3.8 Flash Cyber does not depend on budget but on admission to a program whose selection rules the vendor writes alone. Building such a tool into a defense plan means building in a dependency on that selection.
FAQ
How much does Gemini 3.8 Flash cost?
It launches at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens. That introductory rate expires December 31, 2026, after which Google lists $1.50 and $7.50.
Where can I use Gemini 3.8 Flash?
Per the announcement: Google Antigravity, AI Studio, Android Studio and Stitch, plus Gemini Enterprise and the Google AI Pro and Ultra subscription tiers.
How do I get access to Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber?
Only through the Fairwind program, which targets vetted defenders, government authorities and critical-infrastructure operators. It requires an application, and Google has not published the vetting criteria.
