Google ships Gemini 3.8 Flash and a Cyber variant at $0.75/$3.75 intro pricing

Google's entry in the mid-tier price war is Gemini 3.8 Flash, aimed at long-horizon coding and agentic tasks. A specialized variant, Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber, is tuned for defensive security work. Both launch at introductory pricing of $0.75 input and $3.75 output per million tokens. That doubles to $1.50/$7.50 on January 1, 2027.

The time-limited pricing is unusual and telling. Google is buying adoption during a week when Sonnet 5.5, GPT-6.1 Sol and Grok 4.7 all compete for the same agent workloads, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash undercuts everyone. Even at the post-January rate, Flash remains well below Sonnet's $2/$10, but the scheduled increase signals that Google does not see current prices as sustainable. That fits the week's CapEx debate.

The Cyber variant fits a broader trend of security-specialized models. OpenAI is upgrading Codex Security Cloud with cyber-capable models through Daybreak Blue, and Cohere and Bell launched a cybersecurity model for Bell's autonomous SOC. It also contrasts with Anthropic, whose restrictive Claude 5.5 cyber safeguards are drawing user complaints. Google is taking the opposite approach: a dedicated defender model rather than blanket refusals.

These models follow Gemini 3.8 Live and Live Extended Thinking. A purported Gemini Pro 4 leak drew 286 comments of speculation on r/singularity. Watch for independent agent benchmarks and whether the Cyber variant has meaningful access controls.