Gemini 3.8 Live Claims the Independent Speech-to-Speech Board
Google shipped Gemini 3.8 Live and Live Extended Thinking for production voice agents. Google says Extended Thinking tops Artificial Analysis’ Speech-to-Speech Quality Index at 82.6; API audio is $0.005/min in and $0.018/min out. SynthID on all generated audio.
Corrected October 14, 2026: Attributed the Artificial Analysis ranking claims to Google in the summary, SEO and body, and renamed the 'Independent checks' heading.
Google is putting live speech on the same 3.8 family as Flash — and it is claiming the independent speech-to-speech board, not just a vendor table.
Google (September 15): Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking — native speech-to-speech models for production voice agents. 3.8 Live: scale and cost, visual grounding, background tool calls, auto-detect 97 languages. 3.8 Live Extended Thinking: high-complexity tasks; reasons and speaks at once.
Two SKUs#
| SKU | Job | Where it ships today |
|---|---|---|
| 3.8 Live | Low-latency dialogue + visual + async tools | API, AI Studio, Search Live, Gemini Enterprise (private preview) |
| 3.8 Live Extended Thinking | Multi-step reasoning while speaking | API, AI Studio, Gemini Live, Docs/Gmail/Keep (Pro/Ultra) |
Dev: Gemini API + AI Studio Live API at $0.005/min audio in, $0.018/min out. Enterprise private preview in Gemini Enterprise. Consumer: 3.8 Live powers Search Live; Extended Thinking in Gemini Live and, in Workspace — Docs for AI Pro / Ultra and Gmail / Keep for all Google AI subscribers. SynthID on all generated audio.
Benchmarks (as reported by Google)#
Google says Extended Thinking is #1 on Artificial Analysis Speech to Speech Quality Index (82.6); τ-Voice 68.6%; Sierra τ-Voice-banking 35.1%; Big Bench Audio 97.7%. Base 3.8 Live second on AA Speech Agent Arena. EVA-Bench (ServiceNow): Google says the pair sit on the accuracy–quality Pareto.
Limits#
- Watch whether Search Live actually sounds like Extended Thinking, and whether $0.005 / $0.018 holds once GPT-Live-1 is in the API.
- Enterprise Live remains private preview.