Google Announces Gemini 3 Amid Growing OpenAI Rivalry

Google is entering the next phase of the AI race with the debut of its highly anticipated Gemini 3 model, intensifying the competition with OpenAI, the company behind the groundbreaking ChatGPT. As the generative AI landscape continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, Google’s latest offering aims to deliver more nuanced and insightful responses, requiring less user input to achieve desired results.

“Our goal with Gemini 3 is to provide users with a more intuitive and efficient AI experience,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stated in a blog post. “This model is designed to understand the depth and context of your queries, delivering more relevant and actionable information.”

Gemini 3 is slated for integration across Google’s AI ecosystem, including the Gemini app, AI-powered search products like AI Mode and AI Overviews, and enterprise solutions. The initial rollout begins Tuesday for select users, with broader availability planned in the coming weeks. This rapid deployment follows Google’s earlier releases of Gemini 2.5 and 2.0, demonstrating the company’s commitment to continuous AI innovation. OpenAI launched GPT-5 in August.

“The evolution of AI in just two years, from processing basic text and images to now understanding complex contexts, is truly remarkable,” Pichai noted. “With Gemini 3, we’re scaling our AI capabilities across Google, making it more accessible and impactful for users worldwide.”

Google reports impressive user engagement figures, with the Gemini app reaching 650 million monthly active users and AI Overviews engaging 2 billion monthly users. While these figures are substantial, OpenAI reported ChatGPT boasting 700 million weekly users this past August, highlighting the competitive landscape.

According to Google, Gemini 3 is engineered to better understand the underlying intent of user requests, resulting in more accurate and insightful responses with fewer prompts. While Gemini 3 tackles complex tasks, Google noted its other AI models will remain in play for simpler applications.

The pursuit of AI dominance is driving significant capital expenditure among tech giants. Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon collectively anticipate spending over $380 billion this year to bolster their AI infrastructure and develop new consumer and enterprise services. These investments reflect the strategic importance of AI in shaping the future of technology and business.

According to Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, Gemini 3 will move beyond superficial responses, aiming to “trade cliché and flattery for genuine insight — telling you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear”. This comes as industry observers noting current AI chatbots are not providing unique or useful responses.

OpenAI also recently rolled out two updates to GPT-5 aimed at improving its performance and user experience to remain competitive. The company says this version is now more intelligent, warmer, and better at following instructions, while also being faster on simple tasks and more persistent on complex ones.

In addition to Gemini 3, Google is introducing a new agent platform called “Google Antigravity,” empowering developers to code at a higher level of abstraction, focusing on task-oriented development.

According to Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Labs and Gemini, Gemini 3 is Google’s “best vibe coding model ever,” highlighting the model’s capabilities in the rapidly expanding “vibe coding” market, where developers use prompts to generate code.

Google stated that Gemini 3 will enable “generative interfaces,” delivering responses in a format resembling a digital magazine. For instance, when asked to “explain the Van Gogh Gallery with life context for each piece,” Gemini generated a visually rich explanation for each painting.

Within AI Mode, Gemini 3 will initially be available to paid subscribers, enabling it to analyze complex questions and generate layouts with visual elements, such as images, tables, and grids. Google says it can also create interactive tools and simulations, like a custom-built loan calculator or an interactive simulation for complex physics problems.

Developers can access Gemini’s capabilities through the Gemini API, and businesses can integrate it via Vertex AI, Google’s cloud service designed for building, managing, and deploying AI models.

For enterprise clients, Gemini 3 will cater to many business needs, offering solutions for employee onboarding and training, accurate analysis of videos and factory floor images, and streamlined procurement processes. The model’s multimodal capabilities promise enhanced insights and automation across diverse industries, potentially revolutionizing workflows and decision-making processes.