Brain drain, models are left behind, and commercialization is under pressure! Gemini users break 1 billion, it's hard to hide Google (GOOGL.US)'s “internal and external concerns”

Zhitong Finance App learned that while competition among the world's leading chatbot providers continues to heat up, Google (GOOGL.US) CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the company's Gemini app has now surpassed 1 billion users. Pichay posted on social platforms on Tuesday: “Currently, more than 1 billion people use the Gemini app every month to inspire new ideas and get work done. This is our fastest-growing product to date, and our 14th product with over 1 billion users.”

Pichay added, “Kudos to Josh Woodward and the entire Gemini team, and thanks to everyone who accompanied us along the way — there's more exciting content ahead!” Woodward is Google's vice president and is responsible for leading Google Labs, Gemini Apps, and AI Studio.

Competitors continue to grow

The number of Gemini app users surpassed 1 billion, which is certainly exciting news for Google, but the company is still facing multiple challenges in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The first is an external challenge. OpenAI announced on July 31 that its artificial intelligence model has now reached more than 1 billion active users and 2 million enterprise users. In order to improve the commercialization process, OpenAI expanded the ChatGPT advertising business. On Tuesday, the company, led by Sam Altman, revealed that it has launched ChatGPT Ads in the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea. OpenAI began testing ChatGPT ads in the US in February. By March, the business had expanded to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

OpenAI said, “Keeping the Free and Go plans running fast and reliably requires significant infrastructure and ongoing investment. Advertising helps fund this work, supports wider use of AI by providing higher-quality free and low-cost options, and allows us to continuously improve the level of intelligence and functionality we provide. If you don't want to see ads, you can upgrade to the Plus or Pro plan, or choose to turn off ads in the Free plan, but the number of free messages you get per day will be reduced accordingly.” OpenAI said the ads will not affect the output provided by ChatGPT.

Although Grok, a subsidiary of SpaceXAI, clearly lags behind Gemini, ChatGPT, and Anthropic's Claude in terms of market share, it still has a group of loyal users and continues to launch regular updates and new features. On Tuesday, SpaceXAI launched the Grok Bot, which functions like a team of multiple “always-on” intelligent agents that can work across different apps and tools.

SpaceXAI said, “We initially built the Grok Bot as an internal prototype, and then it grew rapidly across the company. Teams create bots to handle sales outreach, marketing activities, office operations, bug fixes, and more. Today, we're excited to open it to users around the world.” The product was available in beta form from the same day for SuperGrok Heavy, Cursor Ultra, and Cursor Teams Premium subscribers on Apple's iOS systems.

The company said, “Employees within SpaceXAI usually run multiple bots simultaneously, and one of them is responsible for managing the other bots. At the top is a 'Chief of Staff', and below, each area of work is staffed with a professional agent — inbox management, expense management, recruitment, bug fixes, or operations. You no longer have to manage multiple intelligent agents; Grok Bot gives you a lean team that can work in parallel, so you don't have to act as a middleman anymore.”

Google may have shelved the release of the Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model

In addition to external challenges, the signals sent from within Google also made some market participants uneasy.

According to a recent report by industry analyst firm Semi Analysis, Google may have shelved the Gemini 3.5 Pro model internally. At the 2026 I/O developer conference held in May of this year, Pichay said that the Gemini 3.5 Pro model would be launched in June, but the model has not been launched yet.

According to the original plan, the Gemini 3.5 Pro model should take on the task of re-impacting Google's cutting-edge AI competition. After all, in the context of OpenAI and Anthropic's continuous updating of model capabilities, the Gemini Pro series has always been an important yardstick for the outside world to measure Google's AI strength.

Outsiders speculate that the actual capabilities of the Gemini 3.5 Pro model may not have met Google's initial expectations. According to Semi Analysis, the capabilities of the Gemini 3.5 Pro are about close to the level of Anthropic Claude Opus 4.5, which was already a model released at the end of November last year.

As a transition solution, Google introduced more Flash models, including 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber. However, judging from current public evaluations, the Gemini Flash series places more emphasis on speed, cost, and deployment efficiency. There is still a gap with Muse Spark 1.2, Grok 4.5, and the industry open source model in terms of complex reasoning, programming, and agent tasks.

On Google's Q2 2026 earnings call, Pichay once again reiterated, “I'm very excited about the progress we have made in cutting-edge areas” and is “confident that the Gemini model will stay ahead of the curve.”

However, Semi Analysis points out that Gemini has clearly lagged behind cutting-edge models. According to the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, Gemini currently ranks 8th among laboratories, behind Muse Spark 1.2, Grok 4.5, and the head models of Chinese open source laboratories.

Top talents are leaving one after another

Earlier this month, Chief Scientist Jeff Dean announced his departure after 27 years. Previously, a number of well-known researchers have left Google, including Norm Chazelle, one of the authors of the 2017 landmark paper “Attention Is All You Need” — an article that laid the foundation for generative AI, and now all eight authors have left Google. Chazel switched to OpenAI in June of this year, and it is less than two years since Google recalled it through “takeover recruitment” for nearly $3 billion. Shortly after his departure, Nobel laureate John Jamper also left DeepMind to join Anthropic.

D.A. Davidson analyst Jill Luria pointed out that Google's top talent drain is clearly trending. He said, “They're not passionate about commercializing AI; they want to be part of history. So they see Anthropic, OpenAI, or other startups as places where history can be written.”

Google's investment in global data centers, chips, and related infrastructure is almost unrivaled, yet computing power is still in short supply. Each TPU is assigned to train models, support Google products, or fulfill cloud customer contracts, representing a choice between multiple priorities. According to a number of people familiar with the matter, who did not wish to be named, some Google researchers are increasingly dissatisfied with obtaining computing power — it is difficult for them to obtain the computing resources needed to advance cutting-edge projects, yet they have seen Google sell self-developed TPUs to external customers, including Anthropic. Furthermore, Google's internal hierarchical approval is cumbersome, and the transformation of research results into products requires multiple levels of clearance, making OpenAI, Anthropic, and even younger startups more attractive to AI developers — they prefer lab work over financial data.

AI leadership reshuffle

According to previous reports, Google's AI leadership has undergone large-scale adjustments. DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis handed over day-to-day management, stepped down as the overall head of commercialization at Gemini, and became Chairman of DeepMind and Chief Scientist of Google, focusing mainly on long-term AI research. Former DeepMind Chief Technology Officer Corey Kavukkuoglu was promoted to Senior Vice President of DeepMind (DeepMind no longer has an independent CEO), responsible for the development and operation of the Gemini model, and reports directly to Pichay.

Furthermore, Google co-founder Sergei Brin will be more directly involved in Gemini. Currently, Brin has no formal executive positions. However, since the release of ChatGPT, he has re-intervened in Google's daily AI affairs, participated in model testing, discussed technical routes, and exerted more and more influence on Gemini's development direction.

The core of this restructuring is the relocation of the AI decision-making center from London back to Silicon Valley, aimed at reversing trends that have plagued the company since at least 2023. Back then, Google merged two highly regarded science labs that originally operated independently: Google Brain, which is based at the company's Mountain View headquarters, and DeepMind, which is rooted in London. Although the two laboratories merged under the name of Google DeepMind, the researchers are still working on different continents. According to people familiar with the matter, this arrangement made the decision-making process more complicated, and also made talents from both places feel dissatisfied.

A major focus of Google's future business strategy is to transform the “research federation” that used to be scattered in the traditional systems of DeepMind in London and Google Brain in California into a Gemini product delivery machine with Mountain View as the core and directly responsible to Pichay. Kavukkuolu is also in charge of Google DeepMind's day-to-day operations and chief AI architect responsibilities, which means model pre-training, post-training, evaluation, computing power scheduling, and collaboration with Cloud, Search, and developer products will be incorporated into a shorter decision chain.

These latest personnel adjustments and transfers do not weaken basic research, but rather split management of “long-term scientific exploration” and “quarterly product delivery” in an attempt to solve the problems of slow decision-making and slow commercialization of research results by cross-continental teams after the 2023 merger.

The Gemini 3 series model and the Nano Banana image editing tool helped Google regain market attention. Google has also proven that it still has the ability to develop cutting-edge models.

But now the trickier task is to quickly transform model capabilities into developer tools, enterprise services, and stable revenue. In the AI programming and enterprise markets, OpenAI and Anthropic have established a first-mover advantage. Google's senior management and board of directors are worried that the company's research strength has yet to be fully transformed into product competitiveness.

Gemini previously carried multiple functions such as research, modeling, application, and safety at the same time. The decision-making chain is long, and it is easy for research goals to clash with the pace of the product. The new management structure hands over Gemini's daily development to Kavukkuolu, helping to reduce the decision-making cycle and speed up model release and product implementation.

The report also mentioned that some Google executives are dissatisfied with the extent to which Hassabis invests in commercialization work. AlphaFold is considered one of the controversial cases. This protein structure prediction system helped Hassabis win the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and also had a huge impact on scientific research. However, after the free opening of the project, Google did not receive commercial returns commensurate with the scale of investment. People close to Google denied that there was an obvious conflict between the two parties. They note that Hassabis led the early launch of Gemini and has been concerned about the progress of the project.

After major changes in Google's AI leadership, whether the new structure works depends on the smooth coordination of the three routes. Research needs to preserve room for exploration, model teams need to iterate faster, and product departments need to find users who are really willing to pay. For Google, the list of top papers and models is no longer enough to dispel external doubts; the next competition will be on coding tools, corporate markets, product experience, and commercial revenue.

Brin's return to the center of AI power shows that Google already sees Gemini as a core battle requiring the founder's personal intervention. Hassabis's retreat from the front line of scientific research also means that the research-led model that DeepMind has formed over the past ten years is changing. Google has models, computing power, data, distribution channels, and a huge base of enterprise customers. Today, it needs to prove that it can compress these resources into a faster product link.