diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 5dd878676da2..0c4b5dc5b418 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -10,6 +10,9 @@ internal API changes are not present.
 Main (unreleased)
 -----------------
 
+v0.38.0-rc.0 (2023-11-16)
+-------------------------
+
 ### Breaking changes
 
 - Remove `otelcol.exporter.jaeger` component (@hainenber)
diff --git a/docs/sources/_index.md b/docs/sources/_index.md
index 865c936bba1c..ecbe02c29237 100644
--- a/docs/sources/_index.md
+++ b/docs/sources/_index.md
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ title: Grafana Agent
 description: Grafana Agent is a flexible, performant, vendor-neutral, telemetry collector
 weight: 350
 cascade:
-  AGENT_RELEASE: v0.37.4
+  AGENT_RELEASE: v0.38.0-rc.0
   OTEL_VERSION: v0.87.0
 ---
 
diff --git a/pkg/operator/defaults.go b/pkg/operator/defaults.go
index 68842b412f42..d1da8136fa40 100644
--- a/pkg/operator/defaults.go
+++ b/pkg/operator/defaults.go
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ package operator
 
 // Supported versions of the Grafana Agent.
 var (
-	DefaultAgentVersion   = "v0.37.4"
+	DefaultAgentVersion   = "v0.38.0-rc.0"
 	DefaultAgentBaseImage = "grafana/agent"
 	DefaultAgentImage     = DefaultAgentBaseImage + ":" + DefaultAgentVersion
 )
diff --git a/tools/gen-versioned-files/agent-version.txt b/tools/gen-versioned-files/agent-version.txt
index f3d8baac63b3..0419d9c65489 100644
--- a/tools/gen-versioned-files/agent-version.txt
+++ b/tools/gen-versioned-files/agent-version.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-v0.37.4
+v0.38.0-rc.0
diff --git a/tools/gen-versioned-files/gen-versioned-files.sh b/tools/gen-versioned-files/gen-versioned-files.sh
index 39d25a006d07..fff14df68d4b 100755
--- a/tools/gen-versioned-files/gen-versioned-files.sh
+++ b/tools/gen-versioned-files/gen-versioned-files.sh
@@ -6,10 +6,10 @@ if [ -z "$AGENT_VERSION" ]; then
     exit 1
 fi
 
-versionMatcher='^v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+(-rc[0-9]+)?$'
+versionMatcher='^v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+(-rc\.[0-9]+)?$'
 
 if ! echo "$AGENT_VERSION" | grep -Eq "$versionMatcher"; then
-    echo "AGENT_VERSION env var is not in the correct format. It should be in the format of vX.Y.Z or vX.Y.Z-rcN"
+    echo "AGENT_VERSION env var is not in the correct format. It should be in the format of vX.Y.Z or vX.Y.Z-rc.N"
     exit 1
 fi