Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant app, Gemini, has surpassed 650 million monthly active users, chief executive Sundar Pichai said on October 29, highlighting its growing momentum amid intensifying competition from rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s AI assistant.
The figure is up from 450 million users in July and around 350 million in March, driven in part by the rollout of its viral image-generation tool, Nano Banana.
Pichai added that queries on the app have also tripled since the second quarter, but didn't disclose any specific numbers.
How does Gemini’s user base compare to its rivals?
To put that in context, OpenAI recently stated that ChatGPT has over 800 million weekly users, while Meta AI is now used by more than a billion monthly active users across Meta’s apps.
The rising adoption of the Gemini app is also expected to boost Google’s subscription revenue, which has become an increasingly important part of its business. Pichai said that the tech giant has surpassed 300 million paid subscriptions, led by growth in Google One and YouTube Premium.
In the past year, Google One has introduced new subscription tiers that offer access to the company’s AI products and tools, including a lower-cost plan called Google AI Plus and a premium option called Google AI Ultra.
These tiers allow Gemini users to access Google's advanced AI models and premium features such Deep Research, along with higher image and video generation limits and priority access to new features.
Gemini 3 coming this year
During the earnings call, Pichai also said that the company plans to release Gemini 3, the next major version of its flagship AI model, later this year, while highlighting the growing adoption of its existing AI models such as Veo, Genie 3, and Nano Banana.
More than 13 million developers have used Google’s generative AI models, which include Gemini. These models now process around 7 billion tokens per minute through direct API usage by the company’s customers.
Pichai also added that over 230 million videos have been generated with Veo 3, Google's AI video generator.
"I am incredibly impressed by the pace at which the teams are executing and the pace at which we are improving these models. At the same time, each prior model we’re trying to improve is becoming more capable. The underlying pace is phenomenal to see, and I'm excited about our Gemini 3.0 release later this year," he said.
Alphabet's $100 billion quarter
Pichai's remarks came as Alphabet posted its first-ever $100 billion quarter, reporting consolidated revenue of $102.3 billion for the three months ended September, up 16 percent year-on-year (YoY). The growth was driven by double-digit gains in Google Search, YouTube ads, Google subscriptions, platforms and devices, and Google Cloud.
"Five years ago our quarterly revenue was at $50 billion. Our revenue number has doubled since then, and we’re firmly in the generative AI era. In parallel, we’ve built for the long term and diversified, with successful businesses in Cloud, YouTube and subscriptions," Pichai said.
He also noted that 13 of the tech giant’s product lines each have an annual run rate of over $1 billion, reflecting its diversifying revenue streams.
Alphabet also stated that it will raise its capital expenditures to between $91 billion and $93 billion for 2025, up from its July forecast of $85 billion. The increase is driven by growth across its businesses and rising demand from Cloud customers.
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