With the release of its third-generation Gemini model this week, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has vaulted ahead of rivals in the artificial-intelligence arms race, claiming top spots across key industry benchmarks and igniting a surge in its stock price. The model’s debut, detailed in a Wall Street Journal investigation, marks a pivotal shift after years of playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Gemini 3 Pro topped leaderboards on LMSYS Chatbot Arena and WebDev Arena, achieved PhD-level reasoning on Humanity’s Last Exam, and led in long-horizon planning on Vending-Bench 2, according to Google’s DeepMind announcement on X. It outperformed OpenAI’s latest models and Anthropic’s Claude in over a dozen categories, including expert-level knowledge, logic puzzles, math, and image recognition, with internal and third-party tests confirming the edge.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai hailed it as ‘our most intelligent model’ in a company blog post cited by Yahoo Finance, emphasizing immediate integration into Search and the Gemini app. This full-stack approach—spanning hardware, models, and products—positions Google uniquely against software-focused competitors like OpenAI.

Internal ‘Vibe Checks’ Signal Breakthrough

Tulsee Doshi, Gemini’s senior director of product management, conducted personal ‘vibe checks,’ testing the model in Gujarati—a low-resource language—and found results far superior to prior versions, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. ‘I call it signs of life, right? People were coming back and saying, ‘I feel it, I think we’ve hit on something,’’ she said.

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, gained early access and ran enterprise document analysis evals, noting ‘the jump was so big’ with double-digit gains over predecessors, per the Journal. Employees buzzed with anticipation pre-launch, circulating benchmark tables showing Gemini 3 dominating 20 tests, taking second only to Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5 in one coding benchmark.

The model’s prowess in Vending-Bench—simulating vending machine operations with inventory tracking, ordering, and pricing—highlighted advances in tool use and planning, Doshi noted. This agentic capability, blending multimodal understanding with reasoning, underpins its claim as the ‘most powerful agentic + vibe coding model yet,’ Pichai posted on X.

Strategic Overhaul Fuels the Surge

Google’s turnaround stems from dismantling silos, streamlining leadership, and consolidating model development, with co-founder Sergey Brin resuming hands-on oversight, WSJ reports. Post-ChatGPT launch three years ago, fears mounted over search traffic erosion, but May’s I/O conference unveiled AI Mode in Search, boosting confidence.

Nano Banana, powered by Gemini 3, drove user growth from 450 million to 650 million monthly, per company disclosures cited by CNBC. Alphabet’s Q3 revenue hit records, fueled by cloud and ads, propelling shares up over 50% YTD to a $3.6 trillion market cap—eclipsing Microsoft for the first time in seven years.

A federal judge’s September ruling acknowledged AI’s disruption to Google’s search monopoly, opting against harsh remedies, as noted in earnings calls. Analyst Michael Nathanson of MoffettNathanson declared, ‘They are AI winners, that’s pretty clear,’ in the Journal.

Benchmark Dominance Under the Hood

Tom’s Guide detailed Gemini 3 crushing benchmarks, enhancing Search with less prompting for complex queries. TechCrunch highlighted a new coding app and record scores, while Business Insider praised Google’s full-stack harmony after three years of iteration.

Posts on X from Google DeepMind underscored multimodal leaps: Nano Banana Pro, built on Gemini 3, excels in text rendering, world knowledge, and creative controls. It resists prompt injections and cyberattacks better, with safeguards advancing alongside capabilities.

Robby Stein, VP of Search product, shared an ‘aha’ moment: querying airplane lift force yielded an interactive simulation for his child, not just text—showcasing optimal information presentation, per WSJ.

Market Ripples and Rival Pressures

Alphabet shares surged on Gemini 3 optimism, CNBC reported, as the model challenges ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly users versus Gemini’s 650 million monthly. Claude leads in some coding views, but Gemini 3’s breadth threatens across tasks.

The New York Times noted improvements in coding, search, and multimodal content. Economic Times warned it could problemize OpenAI, integrated day-one into profitable products like Search.

Neowin confirmed Gemini 3 surpassing OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 across benchmarks, with DeepMind’s experimental gems like gemini-exp-1206 previewing future edges in coding and reasoning, as Pichai tweeted.

Enterprise and Developer Momentum

Levie’s Box evals showed Gemini 3 near Gemini 2.0 Flash in data extraction, signaling cheaper, powerful AI. Over 13 million developers use Google’s generative models, per Pichai’s Q3 remarks on X.

Gemini 3 enables complex visuals, infographics, multilingual text, and real-world reasoning in Nano Banana Pro, Tulsee Doshi posted on X. Available to Advanced subscribers in AI Mode, U.S. rollout follows.

MoffettNathanson’s Nathanson, once dubbing Google potential ‘AI roadkill,’ now sees a strong hand. With Brin’s involvement and full-stack bets, Google eyes sustained leadership amid intensifying rivalry.