AI Tools
Google Gemini, explained
Google did not need to make an AI assistant to compete. They had something neither OpenAI nor Anthropic had — distribution. Gemini is the bet on living where you already are.
Google did not need to make an AI assistant to compete with ChatGPT. Google had something neither OpenAI nor Anthropic had — distribution. Your email is in Gmail. Your calendar is in Google Calendar. Your documents are in Drive. Your maps, your photos, your search history. The most natural place an AI assistant could live is right next to all of that.
That is roughly the bet Gemini is making.
What it actually is
Gemini is Google's family of AI models, and the assistant built on top of them. The models are competitive with what OpenAI and Anthropic ship — sometimes ahead, sometimes a step behind, depending on the quarter. By the time you read this, the version numbers will have moved.
What does not move is the strategic shape of it. Gemini is the one that is increasingly woven into the Google products you already use, rather than a destination you go to. That is a different kind of product than ChatGPT or Claude, even if the underlying model is similar.
Where the tradeoff lives
The strength: you do not have to leave your tools to use AI. You can ask Gemini to summarise a long email thread directly inside Gmail. You can have it draft a doc inside Docs. You can search across your own files in Drive in ways search never quite managed.
The risk: the AI that has access to all of that also belongs to a company whose incentives are not always yours. Gemini sees more of your daily life than the others, because it is built into the products where that daily life happens. What that costs you depends on how much you trust the vendor that lives there.
When it makes sense
If your work already lives inside the Google ecosystem, Gemini will probably feel like the path of least resistance. The integration is real. The friction is low.
If you want a more deliberate separation between the place I think out loud with AI and the place my company's documents live, it might be worth using a different assistant for the thinking work, and Gemini only for the productivity-inside-Google work.
The question is rarely which AI is best. It is which company you want sitting in the middle of how you work, and how much of you you are comfortable putting there. That is the question Google is asking each of us, and Gemini is the form the question takes.
Frequently asked
What is Google Gemini?
Google's family of AI models, and the assistant built on top of them. The technically interesting thing is the underlying models. The strategically interesting thing is that Gemini lives inside the Google products you already use — Gmail, Docs, Drive — rather than asking you to come to a separate destination.
Is Gemini better than ChatGPT?
On any given task, you probably will not be able to tell. They are both extraordinarily capable. The choice is less about which is better and more about which company you want sitting in the middle of your daily working life. If your work already lives inside Google, Gemini is the path of least friction.
What is the catch?
Integration cuts both ways. The same AI that can read your inbox, your calendar, and your documents to help you also has access to your inbox, your calendar, and your documents. That is more access than ChatGPT or Claude get. Whether that is fine depends on how much you trust Google.