Google introduced Gemini 3, the smartest AI model yet, offering cutting-edge reasoning, multimedia and coding capabilities. As rumors of an AI bubble grow, the company is keen to emphasize that its latest iteration is more than just a clever model and chatbot – it’s a way to improve Google’s existing products, including its lucrative search business, starting today.
“We are Google’s engine room and now we are plugging in AI everywhere,” Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google’s AI parent company, told WIRED in an interview before the announcement.
Hassabis admits the AI market appears overvalued, with many unproven startups receiving multi-billion dollar valuations. Google and other artificial intelligence companies are also investing billions to build recent data centers to train and run artificial intelligence models, raising fears of potential failure.
But even if the AI bubble bursts, Hassabis believes Google is isolated. The company is already using artificial intelligence to improve products such as Google Maps, Gmail and search. “In the pessimistic scenario, we will rely on this more,” says Hassabis. “I think in an optimistic scenario we have the broadest portfolio and the most pioneering research.”
Google is also using artificial intelligence to create recent, popular tools such as NotebookLM, which can automatically generate podcasts from written materials and AI Studio that can prototype applications using artificial intelligence. The technology is even being explored in areas such as gaming and robotics, which Hassabis believes could pay huge dividends in the coming years, regardless of what happens in the broader market.
Google is making Gemini 3 available today through the Gemini app and AI Reviews, a Google Search feature that synthesizes information alongside regular search results. In demonstrations, the company showed that some Google queries, such as asking for information about The three-body problem in physicswill ask Gemini 3 to automatically generate a custom interactive visualization on the fly.
Robby Stein, vice president of product at Google Search, said at a pre-launch briefing that the company has seen “double-digit” year-over-year growth in the number of natural language queries that are most likely targeted at AI reviews. The company also saw a 70 percent boost in visual searches, which rely on Gemini’s ability to analyze photos.
Despite investing heavily in AI and making key breakthroughs, including the invention of the transformer model that powers most gigantic language models, Google was shocked by ChatGPT’s sudden rise in popularity in 2022. The chatbot not only catapulted OpenAI to center stage when it comes to AI research; it also challenged Google’s core business by offering a recent and potentially easier way to search the Internet.