🎙 Google Releases Gemini 3.8 Live and Live Extended Thinking

On September 15, 2026, Google released the live voice dialogue models Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, supporting 97 languages, near real-time audio and video understanding, and background tool calls.

Compiled by Sergey KostenchukPublished 2026-09-15Updated 2026-09-18

2026-09-15 Research Google

🎙 Google Releases Gemini 3.8 Live and Live Extended Thinking

Google introduced two live voice dialogue models. Both know 97 languages with on-the-fly switching, understand audio and video from a camera in near real-time, and call tools in the background without interrupting the conversation. Extended Thinking reasons and speaks simultaneously, saying things like "Let me check that…".

🌍 Extended Thinking topped the Speech to Speech Quality Index with a score of 82.6, and audio prices of $3/$12 per 1 million tokens bring voice agents to cost parity with text APIs — although the quality of parallel reasoning has not yet been measured.

👤 The models are available in the Gemini API and Google AI Studio (with a free tier); Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers get them in Gemini Live, Gmail, Docs, and Keep.

Source 1: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-8-live-gemini-3-8-live-extended-thinking/ Source 2: https://9to5google.com/2026/09/15/gemini-3-8-live-announced/

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