Google don start September wit strong AI momentum, afta e don finish im longest monthly losing streak for Wall Street for more dan ten years. Di company on Wednesday launch Gemini 3.8 Flash, im third Flash model for six weeks, plus new cybersecurity model wey dey target trusted government and enterprise customers.
Di new Flash model dey focus heavily on coding and agentic tasks, wey be areas wey AI companies dey try to turn into enterprise revenue. Google call am dia best reasoning and coding model yet, wit significant improvements over Gemini 3.7 Flash for software engineering and multi-step tasks.
Tulsee Doshi, senior director of product management at Google DeepMind, tell CNBC say di recent Flash models “really surprise us for positive ways for dia performance,” and dem give dem opportunities to lean into dem. Smaller Flash models dey cheaper to run and faster to iterate dan di company’s largest frontier systems, while dem dey approach dem on some tasks.
But e no be enough to make Google close to Anthropic or OpenAI, according to Gil Luria, analyst at D.A. Davidson. “From a product perspective, this model seem to keep Google for di race, but e probably no go change di fact say dem be distant third for enterprise market,” Luria bin talk, as e recommend holding di stock.
Price na key for Google’s pitch. Gemini 3.8 Flash cost 75 cents per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens, di same introductory price as di last Flash model, even wit di new one offering improvements for coding, agentic tasks and reasoning. Gemini Enterprise dey add pay-as-you-go pricing, token discounts up to 20%, monthly caps on agent spending, and zero-dollar base subscription option.
According to materials wey CNBC see, Google don directly target Microsoft and Anthropic, claiming say dia recurring seat fees and separate product licenses make dia offerings more expensive and less flexible. Google get benefit of scale too. Nearly three-quarters of Google Cloud customers already dey use im AI products, and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian tell CNBC say those customers dey spend about 50% more dan dia original commitments.
DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis don describe future wey dey play to dat strategy. Hassabis tell G20 Innovation meeting on Wednesday say Gemini fit increasingly serve as general-purpose layer wey dey coordinate cheaper specialized models and agents. For dat world, breadth fit matter as much as having di best model.
Google dey tout costs for cybersecurity too. Di company say Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber fit detect and patch software vulnerabilities at frontier-level performance while e dey run substantially faster and more affordable dan larger models. Doshi say dem dey excited to provide offering to defenders wey be fraction of di cost, much faster, while still showcasing frontier-level performance.
Because those capabilities fit also be misused, Google dey initially limit access to small group of trusted government and enterprise defenders through im new Fairwind Program.
There be tradeoff for investors. Alphabet dey spend enormous sums on AI infrastructure, so e dey count on growth and market share gains to deliver returns over di longer term. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel tell CNBC on Wednesday say e see Alphabet as winner for AI, a view wey partly based on how im portfolio companies dey use di technology. “We get plenty visibility from within our companies as to how we dey use AI, wetin type of benefits e dey deliver, so dat bring incremental interest, and then we see Google as significant player,” Abel talk.
While Google’s position for AI dey viewed as tenuous by some market experts, di ad business still dey hum along, growing 14% for di latest quarter. Dat cash engine receive another boost on Wednesday. Federal judge wey dey oversee Justice Department’s ad-tech antitrust case rule say Google no go have to sell im AdX exchange, opting for behavioral remedies instead of di structural breakup wey regulators bin dey seek. Di decision follow separate antitrust ruling last year, when judge reject calls to force Google to divest Chrome.
Antitrust attorney Wyatt Fore, partner at Shinder Cantor Lerner, tell CNBC say e be “big deal” say courts for both cases opt against breaking up di company, adding say Google dey head into di AI race wit no hands tied behind im back.
