Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking vs Higgs Realtime

Higgs Realtime is more reliable, by 3.7 points. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking passed 43 of 82 scenarios on all three runs, and Higgs Realtime passed 46. A scenario only counts when every run of it passed.

For a voice agent, Higgs Realtime, since it gets more scenarios right on every run. Higgs Realtime is ahead on reliability, agent responses, calls where the agent went quiet, interruption and response time, and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking on success rate and data accuracy.

Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, by 18.1 points. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking saved everything exactly right on 84.4% of the calls that save data, and Higgs Realtime on 66.2%. On Booking calls, 88.9% against 91.8%. On Medicare calls, 72.7% against 0.0%. A call counts only when nothing is missing, wrong, extra or saved twice.

No. Higgs Realtime starts replying 0.13s sooner at the median. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking takes 2.07s at the median and 2.74s at p90; Higgs Realtime takes 1.94s and 2.02s. Both are measured on the call audio, from the caller finishing to the agent starting to reply.

Higgs Realtime, by 0.05 on a 0 to 5 scale. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking scores 4.95 and Higgs Realtime 5.00 for how well the agent handled being talked over.

Higgs Realtime, by 4.1 points. The agent went quiet for 10 seconds or more on 5.3% of Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking calls and 1.2% of Higgs Realtime calls.

There is no verified per-minute rate for Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, so cost cannot be compared yet.

Cekura ran both as the whole agent in the same open-source Pipecat pipeline, with the same prompt, tools and connection. A simulated caller worked through all 82 scenarios on live calls, three times each, 3,690 calls across the benchmark. A call passes only when the agent said the right things and saved the right data.