Google prepares to release Gemini 3.8 Flash, a new AI model with significantly upgraded coding capabilities.
Google is preparing to release a new artificial intelligence model called Gemini 3.8 Flash, which may be officially launched as early as Wednesday. Internally referred to as "Skimaki," the model is designed to run faster and cheaper than larger frontier models while providing significantly upgraded coding capabilities. Google engineers have tested the model on an internal coding tool called Jetski, where they reportedly preferred it over Anthropic's Opus model. This release follows a period where Google's Gemini models trailed behind competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic in programming tasks. To address this, the company has increased research resources dedicated to reinforcement learning and post-training. The development comes during a period of personnel changes at Google DeepMind. Demis Hassabis stepped down as CEO of DeepMind to become department chairman and Alphabet Chief Scientist, with Koray Kavukcuoglu taking over daily operations. These leadership changes have accelerated the execution speed of new model releases, as Google aims to maintain a competitive edge in the AI race.
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