Google’s Gemini 3.8 Flash in AI Mode Promises a Game-Changing Fix to Citation Chaos—What This Could Mean for the Future of AI
So, Google just dropped the Gemini 3.8 Flash update into their AI Mode for Pro and Ultra subscribers — sounds like a game changer, right? Well, hold your horses because this shiny new model came with a curious little hiccup: it flat out refused to link or cite its sources. Imagine an AI that talks a good game but leaves you wondering, “Hey, where’d you get that from?” — not exactly the trust builder we were hoping for. Google’s already on the case, promising a fix just around the corner, but it raises a bigger question: can we rely on AI to play nice with the web ecosystem if it’s skipping the citing step? For now, only paying users saw the glitch, and thankfully, it was patched up by the next morning. Still, it makes you wonder how entwined AI and honest referencing really are going forward. LEARN MORE.
Google launched Gemini 3.8 Flash yesterday and incorporated it into AI Mode for Google AI Pro & Ultra subscribers but there was an issue with this model – it didn’t link or cite sources within its AI responses.
Google has confirmed the issue and said it will roll out a fix shortly.
What is the issue. In short, Google AI Mode stopped linking or citing sources within its responses, especially for top-of-the-funnel types of queries. I reported on the issue this morning on the Search Engine Roundtable based on Gagan Ghotra’s screenshots on X that showed this in action. Here are some of those screenshots:
Glenn Gabe also posted screenshots on X of the issue:
What Google said. Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google Search, responded to me on X just now saying:
“Hey — thanks for flagging. This isn’t working as intended, and we’ll roll out a fix soon.”
Why we care. Google has been promising to link more, in a way that supports the web ecosystem. This latest release seemed to have stopped linking altogether. It seems to have been a bug with the latest Gemini model and Google should be releasing a fix soon.
The good news was that this bug only impacted those using Gemini 3.8 Flash, which was only paid subscribers at this point.
Fixed. This was fixed the following morning:
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