cd /news/artificial-intelligence/notes-on-flash-3-8 · home topics artificial-intelligence article
[ARTICLE · art-119181] src=natemeyvis.com ↗ pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Notes on Flash 3.8

Google released Flash 3.8, a new version of its Gemini Flash model, available in Antigravity. In an informal review, Nate Meyvis found that Flash 3.8 with low thinking was about 25% faster than Flash 3.7 on a content-extraction task, but results were not clearly better or worse, and high thinking mode was slow.

read1 min views2 publishedSep 2, 2026

Flash 3.8 is out, as I discovered when it showed up in my Antigravity terminal.

A few notes after perhaps an hour of use:

  • As I discussed earlier today, I use the latest Flash models heavily because they combine power and speed in such a valuable way.
  • Flash 3.8 with high thinking did well on the first tough task I gave it, but it was slow (probably not faster than Fable). I'm likely to keep using Fable 5.1 instead of Flash for tougher tasks.
  • Flash 3.8 with low thinking is addressing simpler tasks, both coding and non-coding, quickly and accurately. I believe that it's more powerful than 3.7, but I haven't yet felt that difference.
  • So far, there's (still) a big latency difference between low and high thinking.
  • I have a standard content-extraction task that I like to use as a benchmark. Over a small sample, Flash 3.8 with low thinking gave results ~25% faster than Flash 3.7 low thinking; those results are different but, in my judgment, not clearly better or worse.
  • "Not better, but faster and a bit different" fits my experience across the ten or so little projects I've done with it so far. Again, given how I use Flash and how important speed is, it would be great if this were true.

Happy New Flash Day!

── more in #artificial-intelligence 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @google 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/notes-on-flash-3-8] indexed:0 read:1min 2026-09-02 ·