Google to fix citation bug with Gemini 3.8 Flash in AI Mode

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.