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Google unveiled Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash-tier model release in six weeks, alongside a new cybersecurity model for government and enterprise clients. The launch coincided with a federal judge rejecting the Justice Department's demand that Google divest its ad exchange, and with Berkshire Hathaway's Greg Abel publicly praising Alphabet's AI standing.
Google released two new AI models on Wednesday: a standard Gemini 3.8 Flash built for agentic tasks, coding, and multi-step reasoning, and Flash Cyber, tuned specifically for finding and fixing software vulnerabilities. CEO Sundar Pichai said 3.8 Flash beats many larger frontier models on the DeepSWE coding benchmark at lower cost, while Flash Cyber scored 86.2% on the CyberGym benchmark and found vulnerabilities across 20 programming languages with over 70% success in internal testing.
TechCrunch has announced the Builders Stage will return to Disrupt 2026, held October 13-15 at San Francisco's Moscone Center. The track will feature founders and investors including Gamma CEO Grant Lee, Precedent.vc's Leah Solivan, and Google's Robby Stein discussing fundraising, hiring, go-to-market strategy, and AI as one of six industry-focused stages at the event.
A Reddit user reported that their Google Home assistant began calling them 'Fish Lemon' after a casual conversation about cooking fish weeks earlier. The nickname has persisted across reminders, smart display labels, and direct queries about their name, resisting attempts to correct it despite their Google Account showing their real name.
Google has rolled out a Google Home app update that lets Gemini for Home handle voice requests that mix media playback and smart device controls in a single command, such as turning off lights while stopping music. The update also fixes previously reported bugs with setting alarms and adding items to Google Keep, and it now alphabetizes automation options while enforcing privacy settings on third-party routines.
Federal judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google will not be forced to sell off its advertising technology business, despite an earlier finding that the unit constituted an illegal monopoly. Instead, Google must change certain business practices to give competitors fairer access, though the ruling did not specify exactly what those changes will look like. The detailed written order remains sealed for two weeks while parties prepare redactions.
VentureBeat's July VB Pulse survey of 170 AI infrastructure buyers found 39.4% plan to evaluate non-Nvidia accelerators like AWS Trainium, Google TPU, AMD Instinct or Intel Gaudi over the next year, versus 25.3% who plan to evaluate Nvidia's next-gen Blackwell GPUs. Despite this evaluation gap, the share of respondents expecting to switch platforms within three months actually dropped from 38.3% to 28.8%, even as usage and infrastructure activity rose across the board.
Microsoft announced it will begin reporting Azure cloud revenue every quarter, ending years of disclosing only growth percentages. The move accompanies a restructuring that reduces the company's operating segments from three to two, its first such change since 2015.
Broadcom topped Wall Street expectations for its latest quarter, with adjusted earnings of $3.32 per share and revenue of $29.59 billion, both above estimates, while net income more than tripled year-over-year to $13.09 billion. However, the company's fourth-quarter revenue forecast of $34.8 billion came in slightly below the $35.03 billion analysts anticipated, sending shares down 5% in after-hours trading.
MapQuest climbed from No. 8 to the top spot on the U.S. App Store this week after declining to comply with an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as 'Lake America,' a change Google Maps and Apple Maps both adopted. Sensor Tower estimates 632,000 U.S. downloads since the order, while MapQuest claims over 1.5 million installs across the U.S. and Canada combined.
Google has shipped Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash-tier model in six weeks, built to handle complex agentic workflows more effectively than earlier versions. Alongside it, the company introduced Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber, a specialized version aimed at vulnerability detection and automated patching, though that variant is currently restricted to participants in Google's Fairwind Program.
Google has launched Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash-tier model release in just six weeks, alongside a specialized variant called Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber aimed at vulnerability detection and mitigation. The company touts it as its strongest reasoning and coding model to date, with introductory API pricing of $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens through year-end before doubling.