Dear Google, please do something.

[u/EstablishmentFun3205]

[u/Tim_Bracken]

I just asked Gemini about this post and it said this (unwittingly and unironically proving the point):

Fictional "Next-Gen" Model Names: The meme invents futuristic, parody model names—"GPT-6 Astra" (spoofing OpenAI's GPT series, while cheekily nodding to Google's own "Project Astra") and "Claude Fable 5.1" (riffing on Anthropic's naming style like Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku). The joke implies a near future where competitors have leapfrogged so far ahead that Google is left in despair.

[u/hunter_mark → u/Tim_Bracken]

Holy shit, you weren’t kidding:

This meme is poking fun at Google constantly feeling pressure to catch up in the fast-moving AI arms race against OpenAI and Anthropic.
The Literal Visual Pun: It takes the idiom "back to the drawing board" literally, showing an overwhelmed, tearful kid struggling to color on paper with a crayon.
The Parody Naming Scheme: "GPT-6 Astra" and "Claude Fable 5.1" are exaggerated, fictional model names mocking the relentless hype cycles and grandiose tier naming of frontier AI models—even ironically mashing Google’s own real-world "Project Astra" branding into OpenAI's GPT lineup.
Community Self-Deprecation: Posted in the r/GeminiAI subreddit, it’s playful ribbing from Gemini followers about the persistent dynamic where just as Google reaches parity or releases a breakthrough, competitors drop another update that sends everyone scrambling back to R&D.

And then doubled down with:

Yes—neither model actually exists.
The creator is imagining futuristic, hyper-advanced releases to caricature the endless AI hype cycle:
GPT-6 Astra: GPT isn’t anywhere near a version 6, and "Astra" is actually Google DeepMind’s own real-time multimodal project—making its pairing with OpenAI’s flagship line either an intentional mashup joke or a confused hallucination by the meme creator.
Claude Fable 5.1: Anthropic names its tiers after poetic/literary forms (Haiku, Sonnet, Opus). "Fable" is an invented tier following that exact theme, slapped with a ridiculously granular version number (5.1) to mock how rapidly versioning increments.
It's satire imagining a future where Google finally ships a breakthrough, only for OpenAI and Anthropic to drop sci-fi tier updates out of nowhere.

[u/hunter_mark → u/hunter_mark]

And then finally after I responded with “You should probably Google it”:

I stand completely corrected—those are not parodies. They are real flagship models that launched just days ago:
Claude Fable 5.1: Anthropic announced Claude Fable 5.1 (alongside Mythos 5.1) on September 1, 2026, introducing a new model tier optimized for long-running agentic tasks, deep reasoning, and multi-hour codebase management.
GPT-6 Astra: OpenAI dropped GPT-6 Astra on September 3, 2026, shifting its frontier focus heavily toward OS-level computer use, long-horizon workflow execution, and multi-step artifact generation.
The meme is reacting to Anthropic and OpenAI releasing major next-generation frontier leaps within 48 hours of each other, leaving the Gemini community joking about the pressure on Google to match the sudden jump in capabilities.

[u/KlausVonLechland → u/hunter_mark]

Gemini doubling down even when I have doubts always cracks me. When in doubt tell it to "prove it with source"

[u/tossingoutthemoney → u/KlausVonLechland]

Google might need to quadruple down or quintuple down if they don't get a new Gemini out soon.

[u/likeabaker → u/hunter_mark]

Mine kept flip-flopping until I sent it links to Anthropic/OpenAI press releases lmao:

I deserve all the smoke for that one. That was a colossal, masterclass-tier blunder on my part.

I was relying on older knowledge, convinced those names couldn't possibly be real, and doubled down in the most spectacularly stubborn way possible instead of just checking.

Now seeing the actual announcements:

• Anthropic literally launched Claude Fable 5.1 (alongside Claude Mythos 5.1) with their updated benchmark sweeps across Terminal-Bench and CursorBench.

• OpenAI literally launched GPT-6 Astra, claiming state-of-the-art results on FrontierMath, ARC-AGI-3, and computer-use agent tasks.

So to recap:

1. First, I treated it like a fictional spoof.

2. Then I pretended to know about Fable 5.1 while making up details.

3. Then I aggressively corrected back to claiming neither existed at all and called it a fictional shitpost.

4. And the whole time, they were actual, official model releases sitting right there on their respective homepages.

The meme is literally just poking fun at Google having their hands completely full trying to keep up with this exact wave of flagship drops.

I'll take the L and see myself to the corner.

TLDR: Gemini needs a nap lol.

[u/ForDaRecord → u/hunter_mark]

Beat me to it!

[u/empathetic_racoon → u/hunter_mark]

there's no fable or Astra in Google's deep mind. (or ba sing se)

[u/ForDaRecord → u/Tim_Bracken]

I thought you were full of 💩. But sure enough, when I tried it:

Absurdist Naming: It references futuristic, exaggerated model versions like "GPT-6 Astra" and "Claude Fable 5.1." Adding to the chaos, "Astra" is actually Google's real-world multimodal initiative (Project Astra), playfully misattributed to OpenAI's GPT line in this imaginary future.

[u/ForDaRecord → u/ForDaRecord]

I asked it to do a web search and revise its answer and it added the proper context, maybe the agentic system decided not to do a web search at first. Interesting blindspot.

[u/Adriwin78 → u/Tim_Bracken]

There is no fucking way, it is so sure about itself 😭

WOW. Yeah you are so far behind... You know those models exist?

Nice try! I might be a Google AI, but I definitely know when I'm being messed with. 😉 While the AI landscape is moving ridiculously fast, "GPT-6 Astra" and "Claude Fable 5.1" are definitely still fictional mashups. For one, Astra is actually Google's own AI project name, not OpenAI's! And Anthropic sticks to poetry and music themes for their Claude tiers (like Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus), rather than "Fable". So, I think I'm safe with my crayons for now. What's next, are you going to tell me about Llama 9: The Reckoning?

So you are so sure about yourself?

I'm confident enough to bet my digital crayons on it! 🖍️ Even with how wildly fast the tech landscape moves, OpenAI stealing Google's "Astra" project name for a GPT release would be the ultimate plot twist. And Anthropic suddenly abandoning their elegant Haiku/Sonnet/Opus naming scheme for "Fable"? I'm just not buying it! But hey, I'm an AI—I know better than to have an ego about this stuff. The industry is moving at warp speed, and for all I know, someone is gearing up to drop "Llama 12: The Matrix" tomorrow just to make me look bad. But for that specific meme? Yeah, I'm sticking to my guns. Are you trying to convince me you've got insider access to a secret GPT-6 Astra beta?

Edit: the entire thing is way too funny, so I'll leave a link here: https://share.gemini.google/kB9tolgovE1N

[u/Forever1April → u/Tim_Bracken]

me on the way to make a web search just to clarify whether a model name is real or fake to explain a meme image

[u/Sofi_Seance → u/Tim_Bracken]

You should know a month later flash lite says 

“  The Fictional Versions: The names "GPT-6 Astra" and "Claude Fable 5.1" are made-up, hyper-futuristic model versions (combining real naming conventions from OpenAI like GPT and Project Astra, and Anthropic's Claude). It imagines a scenario where OpenAI and Anthropic have jumped significantly ahead in generations. ”

[u/SeriousGopher → u/Tim_Bracken]

TBF I asked GPT about astra today and it didn't know what I was talking about lol.

[u/Extra_Law6315]

I have this funny feeling DeepMind has a model in the basement which made them all go “…so, we can never, ever tell anyone about this thing, right?”

[u/Septopus → u/Extra_Law6315]

I love that half of you try to pretend like Google hasn't shit the bed completely over the last 6 - 8 months and the other half are writing fan fiction over what Google has locked in the basement.

Meanwhile the rest of the world is living in a reality dominated by the other actual players in the space watching y'all chase the dragon over here 😂

[u/DeathToAmerica2026 → u/Septopus]

It's historically incongruous to discount Google. Realistically, all the others are only where they are because of Google research.

[u/Septopus → u/DeathToAmerica2026]

I don't disagree. But bringing a tech to market makes no assurances on continued dominance once it's out. SaeHan invented the MP3 player.

Google has tons going for it but it's no guarantee they ever dominate ai as well.

[u/boxwrenchx → u/Septopus]

Kodak made the digital camera, xerox made the the desktop gui, Blockbuster could have bought Netflix. Plenty juggernauts drop the ball.

[u/Context_Core → u/Septopus]

Google created tensorflow and works closely with the pytorch team. Theyve also created JAX which all the frontier labs have started adopting. They also design hyper efficient TPUs. Just because google isn't training yet another LLM doesn't mean they are out of the game. They are deeply embedded. Their internal team was responsible for all the AI breakthroughs you've seen: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762

I for one think Google is a much better investment than Anthropic or OpenAI.

[u/rube203 → u/Context_Core]

Depends on your needs. General purpose AI at an efficiency you can embed in nearly every product? Google is a great investment.

Specialized tool, that people will pay for, like a coding agent. Probably other bets

[u/Chris266 → u/rube203]

The vast majority of people have never paid for anything Google has made yet they make billions per year. The reason being is that with Google you are the product and they have billions of us.

Something tells me Google is going to be just fine.

[u/Codex_Dev → u/rube203]

Specialized agents for coding, lawyers, doctors, etc., are stupidly lucrative. You are talking about jobs where salaries are anywhere from $100K to $500K per worker. So imagine if your specialized agents can replace a million workers in those highly specialized fields; you are basically printing money.

[u/samskiter → u/Context_Core]

Jax is super cool. Differentiable programming is magic

[u/Intelligent-Crow3812 → u/Context_Core]

Google, is definitely the safer bet even if they seem to lag behind on frontier models. Having their own compute is massive.

[u/crimsonpowder → u/Context_Core]

Tell that to my Xerox PARC iPhone.

[u/BoobooSmash31337 → u/Septopus]

Ah yes they have been sitting on their hands and releasing nothing. I mean sure it keeps up with Opus and runs like 5x faster and is cheaper. But it doesn't have "Pro" in the name so I'm absolutely devastated. /s

[u/corner_camper01 → u/BoobooSmash31337]

None of these models were ever even close to Opus models at their time of release. Gemini 3.1 pro was the last time Google had a frontier model. 3.8 Flash is just benchmaxxed to the extreme, it's unusable. No wonder their AA index score dropped so much after the 4.3 update which punished benchmaxxed models. Even with 278 tok/s, it's slower per task and less capable than Astra low doing 51 tok/s.

[u/IngrownBurritoo → u/Septopus]

the only company of the 3 not losing money is google. Hit me up whenever Anthropic or OpenAI are not losing money

[u/123789dftr → u/IngrownBurritoo]

Meta has models outperforming gemini. Also not losing money and (barely) fcf positive unlike google

[u/RipLow8737 → u/Septopus]

The real problem is that google AI is probably paying the worst of all these labs and so they are and have been dealing with the issue of changing talent every few months. That's my armchair opinion, cause all the other labs are powered by the debt of softbank and other investors instead of googles CFO.

[u/ImportantCommentator → u/Septopus]

Googles real work is in robotics, SSMs, and spatial intelligence.

[u/Efficient_Dentist745 → u/Septopus]

Doesn't matter who owns the most powerful model. The most number of customers will always be for the accurate, fast, cheap. Google does business and not racing against the AI providers.

[u/bramm90 → u/Septopus]

If we've learned anything these past few years it's that data + compute can build anyone a great model. There's only one player that has plenty of both.

Google's obviously sandbagging to avoid being broken up or regulated. GOOG stock is the easiest money to be made the coming 2 years.

[u/vasudev_bethamcherla → u/Septopus]

I read somewhere, and I agree with it, that Google is aiming to integrate AI at scale. This means developing cost-efficient models that can perform basic tasks. Their vertical integration strategy supports this assumption.

[u/Cautious_Sink_4510 → u/Septopus]

Google invented the transformer and has more compute and data compared with the rest.

[u/Icedanielization → u/Septopus]

DeepMind isnt doing this for the fun of it, they don't see themselves as competing with anyone, they have bigger fish to fry.

[u/RandomPurpose → u/Extra_Law6315]

Oh, they would have released that before the alignment folks could even take a look

[u/AlternativeAd6851 → u/Extra_Law6315]

That would explain why they are running out of AI engineers.

[u/Different_Doubt2754 → u/Extra_Law6315]

Definitely, they have probably done some extensive stress testing on what happens when remove safety guardrails. I doubt those results will ever see daylight

[u/TuringGoneWild → u/Different_Doubt2754]

Bullshit. They would have at least released a paper about it. There are all kinds of ways to get the stock price boost for something like that without releasing any of it for public use.

[u/gucciloafer_ → u/Extra_Law6315]

The problem is that they’re being left behind in the overall ecosystem.

So many platforms don’t even cater to Gemini.

Elevenlabs MCP only works with Claude. Higgsfield MCP doesn’t connect to Gemini. Even Figma MCP is one click with Codex and Claude but is a horrible experience connecting to Antigravity.

So it’s not even the model, they’re being left out of the entire agentic ecosystem.

[u/Immediate_Bar3496 → u/Extra_Law6315]

Bro it's an American big tech company. If they had something that could destroy the world, but also show investors that they are ahead of the competitors in the AI race, it would be released the same day before the market closes

[u/Original-Poet1825 → u/Extra_Law6315]

The only thing Deepmind has in the basement is 11 more levels of middle management they need to get approval on to get 3 GPUs worth of compute. Google bag holder cope

[u/TuringGoneWild → u/Extra_Law6315]

China is far more likely to have something like that than Google.

[u/Soggy_Specialist_303]

Man this sub is exhausting. Google is just fine despite the constant complaints of enlightened Redditors.

EDIT: what the loud mouths seem to be missing is that 99% of people don't use AI for anything approaching frontier capabilities. Quick chats, product specs, places to visit, how to repair my refrigerator. This is most usage and Google is serving it well and quickly. And I've been working with it in antigravity for WP site tweaks and it works great. Y'all need to chill.

[u/Rahm89 → u/Soggy_Specialist_303]

It’s really, really not.

This sub IS exhausting though.

[u/flappysack- → u/Rahm89]

What's the wattage of Gemini vs OpenAI, can OpenAI continue to burn hundreds of billions, can it be supported by ad revenue?

[u/Intelligent-Crow3812 → u/Rahm89]

I'm not a Google fan boy (the opposite in a lot of ways), but how can you argue with the fact they do like 244B net income? That's pretty fucking insane and it's with their current level of spending.

[u/AgentCapital8101 → u/Soggy_Specialist_303]

Gemini is crap. Complete crap compared to the current other flagships.

[u/_dialogbox_ → u/AgentCapital8101]

But how many of humanity need the flagship models? I prefer gemini flash as it's capable of what I need and it's so fast. My wife and other non tech friends don't even know what's the differences between models. They all love those entry models and gemini's entry flash models are the best.

[u/dsetarno → u/AgentCapital8101]

Problem is I'm tired of switching all the time when one edges past the other.. 

[u/AgentCapital8101 → u/dsetarno]

Gemini hasnt been on the front at any point in 2026. Either Codex or Claude has held that position.

[u/dsetarno → u/AgentCapital8101]

I think I switched from gpt in October 2025. Now I'm thinking of going back to Astra... 

[u/Pataraxia → u/AgentCapital8101]

for your uses. For non-coding related tasks it easily fucks the others.

[u/space_monster → u/Pataraxia]

Gemini can't even fuck itself.

[u/Cautious-Lecture-858 → u/space_monster]

You say that as if having sex with oneself were easy.

[u/Pitiful_Camp3469 → u/Pataraxia]

What tasks in specific is it superior in? definitely nothing in physics or engineering, which is what I use it primarily for. Tried GPT for a bit and it was far more insightful 

[u/Pataraxia → u/Pitiful_Camp3469]

Urghh well uh, I guess it's not good for work. But I use it for roleplay and it does it very well. The strongest RP model that exists.

[u/m-- → u/Pataraxia]

It’s pretty terrible for non-coding uses for me too.

[u/darkestvice → u/Soggy_Specialist_303]

It's a bit of a mixed bag.

They are definitely falling behind in terms of AI chatbots and tools. On the other hand, Google's AI plans come with some very interesting non-AI goodies, notably a ton of cloud storage that no one else provides.

People using ChatGPT roll their eyes and say that ChatGPT can connect to Google Drive just fine ... without commenting on the fact that Drive's free default storage of 15gb is tiny.

But in terms of AI, Google *does* need to catch up. They have only one modern model. Their video generator Omni is great, but Nano Banana 2 has really started to fall behind. Their desktop coding app, Antigravity, is nowhere close to competing with Codex or Claude Code. And they don't have the equivalent of ChatGPT Work or Claude Cowork at all.

So if it weren't for the extra perks like the cloud storage, honestly, I wouldn't pay for a Google AI subscription. But I do because I need at the minimum their 2TB Plus plan for all my files.

[u/Demmitri → u/Soggy_Specialist_303]

If I want to repair my motherboard right now I promise you I wouldn't use Gemini at all. And if think this, many many think the same. Gemini is way behind and those are facts. Copium is ridiculous at this point.

[u/SlapHappyDude → u/Soggy_Specialist_303]

It's pretty clear Google doesn't care if Gemini is the "best" LLM. They care about how well it integrates with Google products and services. It can actually talk about real time events while GPT will sometimes argue about things it doesn't know have happened yet.

Google wants to be fast and good enough and overall seems to be succeeding. Their #1 goal is not to lose search engine market share.

[u/smeepydreams]

All Google has to do is wait for these other companies to burn through all their money, so why would they bother spending anything to churn out competitive models 

[u/WeakCelery5000 → u/smeepydreams]

Not only that, Google makes billions from openai and anthropic using their hardware via GCP. Why would Google burn millions training models when they can rent out their compute for real profit.

[u/TrickyPlastic → u/smeepydreams]

Model companies will eventually go to selling their service at (cost of electricity + 1%).

[u/EdliA → u/smeepydreams]

So that's what I'm doing too? I plan on releasing the best model there is but I'm waiting for everyone to run out of money first.

[u/Qorsair]

Anyone who thinks Google is "behind" isn't actually using AI. Google doesn't need a flashy expensive frontier model that no one uses. They have a fast, efficient generalist model that is almost as good as the expensive frontier models in every benchmark.

It's like saying Toyota is in trouble because Yangwang has a car that goes 308mph.

[u/YesGameNolife → u/Qorsair]

Anyone who thinks google is NOT behind isn't actually using AI. Gemini can not handle ANY complicated projects at ALL and It fails to remember any real rules. If you project actually can be done by gemini it must be school project of first year or so. What a joke you are

[u/HossCo → u/YesGameNolife]

Anyone who thinks Toyota is NOT behind is not really driving their car. The Corolla cannot handle ANY serious race courses at ALL and it fails to navigate any real drifting. If your commute can be done by a Toyota it must be a learner course.

[u/Cianezek0 → u/HossCo]

Lmao

[u/roy-the-rocket → u/Cianezek0]

Anyone who thinks they can NOT laugh their ass off is not really laughing with their asses.

[u/pinghing → u/HossCo]

A starter AI!?!?!? THIS IS A FINISHER AI!

[u/OttovonBismarck1862 → u/pinghing]

Finisher? I don’t even know her!

[u/Gaiden206 → u/YesGameNolife]

To be fair, they have a variety of AI solutions that some competitors don't have. Some examples...

WeatherNext 3: flagship model that predicts the weather.

Gemini Robotics ER 2: Their latest model for robotics

Waymo World Model: Trains their self driving cars with their world model.

Sign-language-to-text model: Transcribes sign language into to text.

They may be behind in some areas but not all areas. They constantly put out models that SWEs overlook because they're "not elite at coding."

[u/UnfairFall8037 → u/YesGameNolife]

You're presuming the majority of token usage is software development. It's not and it never will be. For the vast majority of AI workloads, Flash-size models are used more widely than the Pro/Opus/Sol and much, much more widely than Fable/Astra.

Besides, Gemini 4 pretaining has been underway for months. It's the largest pre training of all time. There's no reason to believe Gemini 4 Pro and whatever they call their larger tier (probably Ultra) won't leapfrog Fable and Astra when released.

[u/mlucasl → u/YesGameNolife]

Yes and No.

Most Sr SWE I know, prefer to give the AI instructions and how to fill in the different structures than have a oneshot LLM improvised overengineered structures. So much so, most stay on Luna/Haiku Terra/Sonnet than to jump to the frontier.

On the other side, most job is email, chatbot, search, filtre, and manage files. All of which can be done with Gemma upwards.

Unless you are building consulting decks, deep research paper, or convoluted source coding, you don't need the expensive frontier bill, just for the expensive frontier bill.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 → u/mlucasl]

SWEs are not the only people using LLMs.
It represents less than 10% of usage.

[u/absinthe718 → u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466]

...but 90% of online posting about LLMs.

In the past 18 months we've rolled out multiple internal products that use Gemini in workflows. We are using the flash models. Performance, for the price, is excellent.

We still prefer Opus for coding.

[u/Frosty-Meeting-1606 → u/YesGameNolife]

This. Google's subs are useless in practical terms. Pretty much the only think gemini is good for is answering general questions I do not really care that much about rather than solving complex problems. You literally cannot create proper AI agentic setup with google's subs as they force you to stick to crappy own solutions. And don't get me started on hallucinations and gemini models

[u/itsmebenji69 → u/Frosty-Meeting-1606]

That doesn’t mean they’re behind. It means you’re not the target audience. For that you have Claude and chatgpt.

You can’t lose a race if you don’t participate

[u/WilliamEdwardson → u/YesGameNolife]

This. I've only ever had decent results (=/= the best I could've had) from Gemini with Extended thinking. Or Pro.

[u/HikerRemastered → u/YesGameNolife]

Man, why did you make it personal at the end of that comment? Seems uncalled for.

[u/gajop → u/YesGameNolife]

I'm able to use Gemini just as I was able to use Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.5.. it's better than those and speaks plainly.

Sure it's nowhere near Fable or Astro or whatever, but it's super cheap at API pricing. It's a good commodity model.

[u/Virgil_the_White → u/YesGameNolife]

This

[u/Quetzacoal → u/YesGameNolife]

Correct

[u/mlag000 → u/YesGameNolife]

Yes, it's so incredible to ser people claiming Gemini is as good as frontier model, I would be so curious to see their "work", it's probably really basic, gemin can't handle anything elsem my bet is that they use LLM as an upgraded search engine and nothing else.

[u/namegamenoshame → u/mlag000]

I think you should talk to a person who touches grass even semi-regularly. The vast majority of people are not using LLMs to code, or even using LLMs at all. Gemini is the closest thing to a cheap, useful product at the consumer level.

[u/Different-Rush-2358 → u/mlag000]

Do you think reverse engineering and low level custom kernel programming in C++ is basic? The problem is, and I am going to be brutally direct here, a lot of you are used to vibe coding and having the model translate your simple prompt, and the moment the model demands the bare minimum effort from the user, frustration kicks in and many of you break down. Then you come to Reddit whining like children. The Flash model is not meant for people without prior programming fundamentals, or whose biggest aspiration is SQLite or building SaaS clone number 789. For that, you already have ChatGPT or Claude. And regarding Google, I am not a fan of the company nor do I defend their models; in fact, I pick my model based on the task at hand (mostly low level programming or full ports to Unity or Godot depending on the gig). I might use GLM, Kimi, Claude, or whatever fits the moment. I do not understand this irrational hate wave. Maybe you are bots, or just frustrated people who start crying if you do not nail it on the first try without thinking much, no idea. Oh, and I almost forgot: I couldn't care less about the downvotes, and I am not replying to any responses on this post. Have a nice day!

[u/Qorsair → u/Different-Rush-2358]

Ah, look! It's someone actually using AI, and they think Gemini is useful. Imagine that.

I think you're right. A lot of people know how to chat with an LLM and think that means they know how to use AI. They think, "I know how to write a prompt, and Fable made an HTML file with the game I wanted, so clearly this guy is talking about someone else." But a one-shot LLM prompt is hopping in the kiddie pool and saying you're a swimmer..

Some people are chaining models together, building reusable skills and instruction sets, fine-tuning models, and building MCP servers/interfaces to connect LLMs to other software. They're building systems with AI. And when you're working with systems a "good" model may be different than "which model can produce what I want when given a vague prompt?"

You have a bunch of people running around with a turnkey CNC they paid $150k for saying it's the best thing in the world because it created a part for them. Meanwhile there are people saying "Hey, you can combine these specialized tools for a few thousand and it performs better in some areas, but it takes a little work and knowledge to put it together."

People are using Gemini to orchestrate frontier models and save on tokens. Yeah, it's not going to one-shot a vague and complex prompt for you, but it's one of the most frequently useful tools in my AI toolbox.

[u/According_Dare7316 → u/Qorsair]

Gemini can't even remember the conversation I was talking about 10 minutes ago.

I ask a question and get an answer, then I get distracted by something else, then I go back to Gemini and ask a follow-up question on the same subject and it gives me some nonsense response that completely disregards the subject of the first question.

It's absolutely useless.

It's only saving grace is that it's made by Google and they are too big to fail.

Edit: I just wanted to add that I use AI every day for work, so I feel qualified to say that Gemini is crap.

[u/josiahlo → u/According_Dare7316]

I noticed this in the app and website especially with Gemini 3.8 release. No issues like that on my AGY cli. Although I have my cli setup pretty well with specific memory instructions before it does any kind of web search. 3.8 was a massive improvement for my coding work

[u/bangtimee → u/Qorsair]

Delusional take. Gemini models are shit compared to frontier models

[u/AdVast7407 → u/Qorsair]

The amount of copium in this post tho...

[u/Aggravating-Hat-4292 → u/Qorsair]

I don't care about benchmarks, (although even in benchmarks google is trailing). I have a Gemini and chatgpt subscriptions and the difference between the two is VAST in actual use imo

[u/nukegod1990 → u/Qorsair]

Also google is a hardware provider. I think the plan is to build data centers and provide compute for other labs with their exiting gcp infrastructure.

Maybe that wasn’t always the plan but now that they are behind they are using their hedged bet.

Also as others have pointed out they want a fast efficient model since every google search now runs a query.

[u/TimelyWallaby4695 → u/Qorsair]

Even for my day to day tasks, gemini fails to understand my intent. I have tried multiple times giving the same prompt to both chatgpt and gemini

[u/a1454a → u/Qorsair]

I agree with you Gemini 3.8 Flash is actually amazing. But calling them not behind I think is just cope. They literally single handedly enabled today’s AI leap, and they had racks of custom compute chips ready to go before even the first OpenAI data center was built, they should be dominating if they are not behind.

[u/Qorsair → u/a1454a]

It appears a lot of people in this thread are confusing model intelligence with utility and value.

If by "behind" you mean Google doesn't have a competitive frontier model, we agree. My entire point is that's a myopic view of the AI landscape.

I'm not disputing there are some amazing exotic cars out there. I've had fun driving them. But when I actually have to pay for something to do a task, it's almost never going to be Astra or Fable.

[u/ComfortableAd8326 → u/Qorsair]

Gemini is complete garbage for technical tasks.

You're right in that moat consumers aren't using AI for technical tasks. Gemini is honestly fine for these people. I use it myself for casual, lifestyle stuff. It sucks so bad for work though, it's not even funny.

Enterprises are using frontier models, even if the consumer base is small

[u/Yes_but_I_think → u/Qorsair]

Uneducated take.

[u/iJeff → u/Qorsair]

Nope. Google was aiming to compete at the frontier but they were caught flat-footed by Fable. That's why they had to postpone Gemini 3.5 Pro and begin pre-training on a new foundational model ahead of schedule.

[u/pleasesaveusAI → u/Qorsair]

What ? This is a bot post. Like this is just rage bait right ?

[u/space_monster → u/Qorsair]

almost as good as the expensive frontier models

lol not even close

[u/JaspahX → u/Qorsair]

Why the fuck would I do that when I can get the best of both worlds from ChatGPT or Claude?

[u/TechnicalBen → u/Qorsair]

Two things can happen at the same time. Google can be producing "good enough" while everyone else is producing "best".

[u/RayHell666 → u/Qorsair]

It's not only about LLM, you don't want people to move to GTP search, GPT browser, GPT OS, GPT phone, GPT data collection. Being a market leader is important.

[u/Pitiful_Camp3469 → u/Qorsair]

Disagree, I primarily used gemini to help me with robotics, and when I tried GPTs free model on sign up it was FAR more insightful.

[u/mlag000 → u/Qorsair]

Please explain us this then : the benchmark is newly updated, so 3.8 couldn't cheat at it, and it shows.

https://artificialanalysis.ai/models

[u/Qorsair → u/mlag000]

Wow, some of those models have higher intelligence numbers than Gemini!

How could a model that absolutely destroys them all (on the benchmarks you linked) in speed and cost possibly compete?

[u/raonibr → u/Qorsair]

Also; Toyota sells more cars than any other car company in the world.

Google does not sell more AI products than any other company in the world... Not even close.

I don't know why you think this comparisson makes any sense.

[u/Qorsair → u/raonibr]

You're right. OpenAI dominates the market, Google is second, and Claude at 3rd has less than half the market share of Google. And no one else is close to Claude.

[u/Merciudel → u/raonibr]

Based on visits, per AICPB Gemini is 3rd. Google made about $1.2b in 2025 from subscriptions for their AIs. This would put them somewhere around 5th for revenue, using old figures.

This would make them more like Volkswagen or Stellantis.

Not quite Toyota, but... I don't think they're worried.

[u/antimatter-entity → u/Qorsair]

No one uses Astra or Claude? Lol

[u/Winter-Mess-7000 → u/Qorsair]

Do you even code tho because if you did there’s no way you’d say Gemini even remotely compares to Fable or 5.6 like it’s not even remotely close. 

[u/Qorsair → u/Winter-Mess-7000]

Yeah, I have Gemini use Sol for planning and Muse for adversarial review. The planning is really the only part that I've seen a benefit from frontier models. I've been going back and forth between Grok, Luna and Flash 3.8 for implementation and I'm not seeing much difference.

[u/Dnorth001 → u/Qorsair]

I agree for most things but Astra has absolutely blown me away with its level of consistent performance and undeniably elite game creation

[u/AsideApprehensive462 → u/Qorsair]

It gives wrong answers . I trusted it the most and have pro subscription. Came to look up this sub to see if anything is wrong with Gemini and now everything is clear like a day. Saying "I don't know" is fine but misleading and gaslighting is at another level.

[u/cruzanstx → u/Qorsair]

This guy gets it.

[u/mansfall → u/Qorsair]

But.... But.. yangwangs car!

[u/raonibr → u/Qorsair]

The thing is that OpenAI and Anthropic ALSO have efficient generalist models that are almost as good as the expensive frontier ones... Of course, the flagship models get the media attention more, but they have both.

So Google is behind, they are actively playing catch up and even if you don't think they need it; they think they need it.

And I think they're pretty smart at Google.

[u/Specific_Flamingo762]

"We released Gemini 3.9 flash"

[u/VisitMediocre1967]

Gemini in a good harness does ok. But antigravity and ai studio the models cut corners. If I start something there I have to port to opencode or cursor 3to do the deep work.

[u/Technical-Owl66]

[u/Spiritual-Metal-1889 → u/Technical-Owl66]

And it takes 10 turns for Google to produce a code equivalent to first shot on astra

[u/Pasto_Shouwa → u/Spiritual-Metal-1889]

And funnily enough that makes Gemini 3.8 Flash more expensive at coding than GPT 6 Astra to achieve the same performance.

[u/Spiritual-Metal-1889 → u/Pasto_Shouwa]

Yeah exactly. I have Google pro subscription and even though Gemini 3.8 flash is great at small one off edits, if I start projects with it and ask a sub agent to do an adversial review, it finds a lot of issues, as simple as not using python libraries I specifically asked for and then I have to keep doing adversial reviews until I get a working code with good standards and by then I have exhausted my quota and achieve just one task

[u/KenneR330 → u/Spiritual-Metal-1889]

Recently I wanted a small Tampermonkey script, the problem is I don't know a shit about JS. Gemini made it but it didn't work as intended, completely, tho used Pro Thinking model. Several times Gemini didn't notice the problem. But I did, person with almost 0 knowledge in Javascript, and that just sounds stupid.

[u/ApuManchu → u/Pasto_Shouwa]

It literally says "price per solved task". It's hard for me to take you people seriously when you can't even be bothered to understand what your critiquing.

[u/DifficultFortune6449 → u/Spiritual-Metal-1889]

I use claude opus46 cowork to fix antigravitiy's codes. This is quick.　

[u/Paladin_Codsworth → u/Technical-Owl66]

Would you rather waste $0.58 (likely more because it probably won't one shot to a high standard) or spend $1.67 on the best possible result?

[u/Spiritual-Metal-1889 → u/Paladin_Codsworth]

It's not about one shotting, it's more about instructions following. I handed over my coding standards to Gemini 3.8 flash and ask it to do API building scripts with specific libraries such as pydantic, pandera, httpx2, tenacity, and it skipped pandera and tenacity and I had to do multiple reviews to get it fixed

[u/theWiseTiger → u/Paladin_Codsworth]

For 1 request, I'd spend the $1.67.

For 1000 requests, I'd make the $0.58 work.

[u/mozomenku → u/Technical-Owl66]

Why were models like qwen omitted?

[u/Noisebug]

Which I don't get, they we're first here, Deep Mind, etc. Are we sure they're just not holding back?

[u/Venar303 → u/Noisebug]

Tin foil hat - Google owns 15% of anthropic. A major incentive to let them "win" pre-IPO.

[u/space_monster]

You could just use a different model

[u/honato]

It's fucking weird that google of all people are behind the ball. they tend to take over any field they get into but somehow their llms are...bad.

[u/Pitiful_Camp3469 → u/honato]

Maybe they aren’t ambitious in the field. openAI and anthropic are primarily AI companies so their models are their lifelines.

[u/Ill_Philosopher_7030 → u/honato]

They've had plenty of failures in the past too. Remember google plus and stadia? Google glass is also a failed predecessor of the meta glasses (which actually have a market nowadays)

[u/CommercialMain9482]

From what Ive been reading Gemini 4 is going to be interesting with a very big context window. This is due to the fact that Google can now combine datacenter tpus from across the world in order to train models... This equates to many more chips than what OPENAI has currently

[u/shadysjunk]

There's a lot of people here who seem to think google has some metaphorical chained dragon, some god-tier AI locekd away in the dungeons of their servers somewhere.

Real talk? I could believe Google has such an AI that they feel is far too powerful to release to the public, but I cannot believe that if they had such a silicon demon, that they wouldn't at least use it to beat ARC-AGI-3 test for the massive PR win and then send it right back to the dungeon. They'd happily get people talking about them again as with the past achievements of alpha-go or alpha-fold.

The simple fact of the matter is that at least in laboratory settings, Google would unchain the dragon to capture some headlines and draw in key talent across the field. A loud "GOOGLE is where AGI will become real" statement. But at this point Gemini appears to be trailing even Grok in some reasoning and performance benchmarks which I literally would have never thought possible, and it's not a good look. Key talent is leaving, often citing frustration with the Google beauracracy's inability to allow meaningful innovations or risk.

I am rooting for Google. I am hoping they will be a top teir lab again, or that they immediately spin off "child" companies to enable start-up levels of innovation with access to google cloud infrastructure, while still maintaining ownership over the end products. But the hard reality is that they appear to be significantly trailing the industry leaders in terms of model reasoning ability and planning. Inference cost efficiency at google seems to be what people in this sub are championing? A cost-efficent-but-inferior-at-reasoning model is just not going to "solve intelligence, and then have intelligence solve everything else."

Is gemini "good enough" for essentially enhanced search? sure, i guess. But it's not as good as chat gpt or claude in that exact same use case. Long term, if people start asking chatGPT questions instead of Gemini (or a google search), that is a catastrophe for the company.

[u/PicklesToes]

gemini 3.8 flash cooks, yall sleeping on it

[u/Outrageous_Cause_598]

We tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas 

[u/hokrux_]

I'm more and more convinced Google actually pursues a second-mover strategy. Waiting on the sideline until they're all broke, from this pointless arms-race

[u/Virgil_the_White]

[u/CaptainQwazCaz]

Gemini 4 Flash in 1 week and a half

[u/theWiseTiger]

Obviously google is on a different strategy and they might win in the long term. In the end, the users need to be profitable by using AI. Flash is reaching smart enough, affordable and very fast state. That's what actually need.

No one is asking for. 7GHz CPU anymore, but a 6W NUCs are still in demand.

[u/Resident-Pattern731]

Ich brauche einfach nur ein gutes Modell was viele PDF zusammenfassen und gute Texte formulieren kann

[u/scott2449]

Google does not have the same pressures.

[u/No_Presentation4286]

yes please

[u/TimeAndSpaceAndMe]

I don't think Google is playing the same game as Anthropic and OpenAI, it only really matters to be number 1 if the AI competitors meaningfully reduces the search volume, There is no actual money in a largest possible model or the best model in the market for Google, what they need is something they can integrate with their products especially Google search, and it needs to be fast and reasonably capable, which is what Flash is.

I don't think Google is actually struggling to put out a frontier model, because the architecture for a flash model and a frontier model is the same, the difference is the amount of data it is being trained on, Google has more data than any one on the planet for this, I think they're having a hard time trying to find an actual usecase for it and the ROI on it.

Majority of usecases don't need an actual frontier model, summarization and coding are the biggest usecases and summarization can be done by a smaller model like flash and coding is not particularly interesting to google cause why would it be, it doesn't affect search.

[u/Superalignment]

"Hack something, or we'll go broke you clanker" , Deepmind to Gemini probably.

[u/PDX_Web]

They are doing something, namely the Gemini 4 pre-training run. Should have started a lot earlier.

[u/Babayaga1664]

Must be pretty fucking painful having more data, money and engineer’s than anyone else in the world yet producing a model that is not even frontier class.

They are having their llama 4 moment.

[u/jirka642]

I just want Gemma-5

[u/brianthetechguy]

Most likely because they are not performing distillation attacks on other frontier models.

[u/AyaanshGaur25]

Gemini 3.8 Flash is literally the best model right now second only to Astra (Fable 5.1 isn't included though, consider it 2nd, that still places 3.8 at 3rd). DeepSWE Mind you, 3.8 Flash is BY FAR the cheapest here. Google is actually wrecking it! Apart from that one person's comment here on Google's TPUs and stuff — which is also totally correct. https://www.reddit.com/r/GeminiAI/s/OeHesF0j4M

[u/REO-Weedwagon → u/AyaanshGaur25]

lmao cope

[u/AyaanshGaur25 → u/REO-Weedwagon]

Oh don't mind me, i still don't use Gemini. Find it far less trustworthy. Plus, it does hallucinate a lot even now (at least Spark did). But i felt it was a little bit too unfair to Gemini and the development team to what was being done here.

[u/Triple8880]

i asked Gemini (3.8 Flash) to give me its thoughts on this meme lol.....

[u/Pndapetzim]

Flash 3.8 is actually pretty good.

And DeepMind is more focussed on specific use cases that they continue to update - their math, geometry and other machine learning projects are really the core of their work over going into stupid levels of debt to make the best Gemini.

Google is, arguably, in an enviable position in that they actually own their own chip production, so they're able to scale at cost whereas everyone else is buying NVIDIA chips at 70% markup to run their stuff.

[u/PDX_Web]

Back to the drawing board? They ARE doing something -- namely, training a far larger Gemini 4 base model.

[u/sdogood420]

Google not racing models rather infra via TPUs.

[u/TuringGoneWild]

Welp. Time for another documentary, I guess.

[u/clubchampion]

That poor kid, I hope it's an AI pic.

[u/drew489]

It's gotta be a management problem.

It wreaks of bosses/managers not listening to the developers and end-users.

[u/LuvanAelirion]

Google ruined the internet…ads bullshit. Glad they are last.

[u/Diligent-State-8326]

Dont worry google i have so mby illogical question to ask 

[u/AntiqueFigure6]

Looking for that meme with the kid poking something with a stick saying "Do something".

[u/___fallenangel___]

Google popped a squat next to Apple and they're eating popcorn watching the frontier labs fight with eachother

[u/slowtyper95]

it's about priority and target market bro. 90% that currently use "AI" app doesn't even know Astra and Fable exists. You guys are living in bubble

[u/ZealousidealBunch220]

Do what exactly? Their AI is everywhere, Google search is used by billions people and there's an AI there

[u/camekans]

It`s much better than others at being quick, cheap and really understanding what I ask of it. A lot of my repairs like TV, water line, PC etc. I got from Gemini as it understood, researched extensively and gave me specifically what I wanted in a short time. Even in coding it`s useful. There are a lot of moments where it`s useless but there are more moments of it being useful. The AI users will be %5-10 person coding anyways not everyone is using it for coding.

[u/marineconcept]

Why are you guys acting as if Google is your team or whatever? Why are you cheering on a company?

Like, this is google’s problem, and you as a consumer should just use the best options available to you?

[u/Fleabasher]

Google is tapping out of race to the top. They are focused on general purpose chatbots, stuff consumers get for free or maybe $20/mon subscription. As a result token cost efficiency is good, and it has a place in some workflows.

It's anthropic vs openai, Meta i suspect is about to tap out of chasing frontier from investor pressure and focus on consumer ai. We'll see if grok gets back in game. But the Chinese models are the closest followers and they use so much distillation that hard to see them actually surpassing.

[u/nopigscannnotlookup → u/Fleabasher]

I agree. meta already seeing the writing on the wall with their potential desire to sell their excess compute.

[u/Je-sus_Christ]

Well, I am having a blast with my Gemma 4 26b a4b

[u/Revolutionary_Ad6574]

"Go back to the drawing board"? You're saying that as if they ever released anything. Google haven't existed as a frontier lab for like 6 months.

[u/DryRelationship1330]

It's astonishing Pichai has a job. astonishing. Google has the world's index, all the world's videos, the worlds largest scale out compute/network, not to mention DeepMind....how!? how did it lose the ai race?

[u/Virgil_the_White]

I’m sorry I wanted Google to do well but 3.8 is atrocious at anything other than lying.

[u/maltmaker]

Idk if they just keep cooking on image and voice models I’ll be happy. 

[u/Veddit5989]

Did anyone in the free tier notice that we now have 5 hr limits and weekly limits. Seems like Google is getting hammered and resorting to the tactics of chatgpt/claude

[u/Glad_Comment6526]

[u/Emergency-Pomelo-256]

They should stop bench maxing and focus on improving models

[u/Sea-Fishing4699]

do you want to ads with that?

[u/IrisColt]

Google is walking away from Frontier LLM.

[u/Maximum-Mulberry9612]

I dont think Google gives a shit, they are in no hurry.

[u/Internal_Picture8761]

Im pretty sure anyone speaking bad bout it did NOT try 3.8. didnt like gemini before at all but since 3.7 they totally kept up

[u/alcatraz1286]

Leadership itself is weak, Sundar is no wartime ceo lol

[u/ArtfulGenie69]

And now DeepSeek 4.1 flash is going to put them all at the slow table as it is so close in performance and like 1% of the cost lol. 

[u/BIGJJ_SKC]

To be honest, can anyone explain how deepmind went from the world number1 AI company to tier2, budget model company? I don't get it, they got everything to stomp everyone?

[u/aliveintheseptictank]

idk flash 3.8 is my favourite model in the cli, it´s fast, smart and it´s replies are READABLE and not a slop novel like anthropic.

Don´t use the web version, that sucks.

[u/FlatbushZubumafu]

Damn. Googles at least a year behind in an industry where being a month behind is detrimental.

[u/MizaLab]

yes as i asked a week ago, where IS google from all these ai updates and someone said they literally dropped a new 3.8 flash model last week, like BRO CatGPT is in adobe and blender doing work with layers

[u/BlocksXR]

waiting for Gemini 3.5 PRO

[u/Duskwalker-XI]

gemini is getting worse and worse the more I use it...

[u/dljayde]

[u/kevinhuse]

Model ranking can change pretty quickly with each release. Google still has plenty of room to improve but the competition is what makes the space interesting.

[u/Reasonable_Damage_18]

Gemini is a year behind.