Google released Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking today

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Google released Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking today

Google launched Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, speech-to-speech models enabling real-time, interruptible voice conversations.

What: Gemini 3.8 Live and its Extended Thinking variant are now available as speech-to-speech models. They support WebSocket-based integration for real-time interaction, allowing users to interrupt the model mid-response through a web-based audio interface.

Why it matters: This move matches OpenAI's GPT-Live capabilities, standardizing the expectation for low-latency, conversational voice agents in LLM application development.

Takeaway: Developers can test the new models via the 'generativelanguage.googleapis.com' WebSocket endpoint using the Web Audio API for real-time capture and playback.

Decoder

Speech-to-speech (S2S): Models that process audio input and generate audio output directly, bypassing the need for separate transcription and text-to-speech layers.
WebSocket: A communication protocol providing full-duplex, bidirectional communication channels over a single TCP connection, ideal for low-latency AI interactions.

Original article

Google released Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking today - two new speech-to-speech models that are a similar shape to OpenAI's GPT-Live family.

I pointed GPT-6 Astra Extra High at the documentation and had it build me this web UI for trying out the new models. You can select a model and voice preset, enter an optional system prompt and then start a voice conversation through your browser, including the ability to interrupt the model while it is talking.

The implementation uses no libraries. It connects to the wss://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/ws/google.ai.generativelanguage.v1alpha.GenerativeService.BidiGenerateContent?key=... WebSocket endpoint and uses a Web Audio API AudioContext for both capture and playback.

Here's the Gemini Live tutorial for getting started with that WebSockets API.

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