Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking vs Cascade

Cascade is more reliable, by 1.4 points. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking handled 17 of 70 real callers well on all three runs, and Cascade 18. A caller only counts when every run of the call scored 80 or more.

On reliability, no: the cascade handles more callers well on every run. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking is ahead on ELO rating, hearing score, turn taking score, speaking score, task handling score, calls handled well and calls fully resolved, and Cascade on reliability, calls where the agent went quiet and median latency. Both ran as the same agent, with the same prompt and tools.

Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking, by 10.5 points higher. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking fully resolved 22.9% of calls and Cascade 12.4%. A call counts only when every step the caller needed was done.

No. Cascade starts replying 0.04s sooner at the median. Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking takes 2.10s at the median and 2.60s at p90; Cascade takes 2.06s and 2.49s. Both are measured on the call audio, from the caller finishing to the agent starting to reply.

Cascade, by 10.5 points. The agent went quiet for 10 seconds or more on 17.6% of Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking calls and 7.1% of Cascade calls.

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

Cekura ran both as the whole agent with the same prompt, tools and phone connection. Both took the same 70 recorded real human callers on live calls, three times each. Each call is graded on 25 skills across Hearing, Turn Taking, Task Handling and Speaking, and passes at a score of 80 out of 100. Cascades run the same agent for reference and are never ranked.