Google’s artificial intelligence assistant Gemini has surpassed one billion monthly users, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai announced on Tuesday, marking a major milestone for the technology giant as competition in the AI industry intensifies.
Pichai described Gemini as Google’s “fastest growing product ever” and said it was the company’s 14th product to reach one billion users.
Google calculated the milestone based on the number of people using the Gemini app across its ecosystem.
The achievement comes just a week after Google announced a major reorganisation of its artificial intelligence division, amid growing pressure on the company to maintain its position in the rapidly evolving AI market.
Demis Hassabis, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has stepped back from the day-to-day management of Google DeepMind, the division responsible for developing Gemini’s models.
Several prominent researchers have also left the organisation, including Jeff Dean, a key figure in Google’s engineering efforts for almost three decades.
Google is also facing questions over the rollout of its next flagship AI model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, which was initially expected to launch in June but has yet to be released.
The delay comes as rival AI companies continue to introduce models that are increasingly viewed as more capable, particularly in computer coding, one of the most commercially valuable applications of generative AI.
Despite the competitive pressure, Google retains a major advantage through the enormous audience of its existing products.
The company has been integrating Gemini across its ecosystem, including Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube, giving the AI assistant access to a large existing user base.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, also announced in July that it had reached one billion users across its various interfaces. However, the company did not specify whether the figure represented monthly or weekly users.
OpenAI sparked the current generative AI boom when it launched the free ChatGPT application in November 2022, building its user base from scratch in less than four years.
The size and growth of AI audiences have also become increasingly important as companies seek to attract investment and increase their valuations.
OpenAI has reportedly been pursuing plans for a potential initial public offering and filed a confidential application in June.
Competition for AI assistant users has intensified, with Google facing pressure from OpenAI as well as China’s DeepSeek and San Francisco-based Anthropic, the developer of Claude.
According to research firm Sensor Tower, ChatGPT’s share of the AI assistant market fell below 50% during the first half of the year. Sensor Tower estimates usage based on company data.
The growing user base of Gemini therefore represents an important advantage for Google as it seeks to strengthen its position in the AI market and turn its vast ecosystem of consumer products into a competitive edge.
