Sundar Pichai: Gemini 3, Vibe Coding and Google's Full Stack Strategy

how it feels like Gemini is this through line across literally every single one of our products >> to see it all come together. It is

really special. I was just reflecting in the last couple of weeks. I think we've pretty much been shipping something every day and so it's a great feeling.

>> The Nano Banana Pro moment. I'm sure

you've spent a bunch of time playing around with the model. People are going crazy with it, which is awesome.

>> To me, it showed how much latent creativity people have. people are going to express themselves and we giving them the tools to do it the way they're thinking it in their head

>> and it empowers me like I feel like I've actually become more creative in like the way I think about the world because of these tools.

>> I think in about 5 years we'll be having breathless excitement about quantum hopefully like like we having with AI today.

Hey everyone, welcome back to release notes. My name is Logan Kilpatrick. I'm

notes. My name is Logan Kilpatrick. I'm

on the Google DeepMind team. Today we're

joined by Sundar Pachai who is the CEO of Google and Alphabet. And we're we're sitting here in Mountain View. Gemini 3

has rolled out. Nano Banana Pro has rolled out. And the reception's been

rolled out. And the reception's been super positive. So I I feel like do you

super positive. So I I feel like do you want to sort of frame the moment of this progress to get to today where we sort of have state-of-the-art models across

not actually just Gemini and Nano Banana Pro uh but VO and some of the other music models and stuff like that across the board. It's like more more and more

the board. It's like more more and more soda the longer the time goes on. Um so

yeah, do you want to frame that moment for us?

>> Well, first of all, uh great to be here.

Uh it's been a phenomenal week. I would

say you know when you when you're working on stuff inside you kind of visualize the moment when you can actually put it all out and when you work on products there's nothing more exciting than that and and that's what

this week is but I think it's based on a foundation over many many years and of all the deep investments we built and it was always clear to me uh you could see

the pace at which we were making progress but to see it all come together it is really special I was just reflecting in the last couple of weeks.

I think we've pretty much been shipping something every day and so it's a great feeling.

>> It is. Yeah. Yeah. I I remember back to um you and I were talking probably a year and a half ago and I was complaining about something. I'm sure I was complaining about something and you

were like uh something to the effect of like pushing me to sort of see this long-term perspective. And I'm curious

long-term perspective. And I'm curious like I think obviously the to me the story of like getting to this moment that we're in now with state-of-the-art models and all this infrastructure to scale up Gemini across Google like is

this long long-term perspective and I think especially in this hyper competitive moment like what are like how how are you keeping that long-term perspective and like because it feels so

much like a like a rat race right now in some sense to like keep hill climbing 1% on all these leaderboards but um obviously that long-term perspective is super helpful. Now, I think I've always

super helpful. Now, I think I've always u you know, I always force myself, you know, you're obviously in the moment. Uh

we work in an industry where you move fast, you want to iterate fast. Uh and I really enjoy that, but being able to pull back and and making this long-term

bets and being very focused over over that time period on a long-term bet, I think it's always super important to do.

I think you know obviously uh in 2016 I wanted the whole company to be AI first.

A lot of what prompted that moment was 2012 was Google brain the famous cat paper which had breakthrough in image classification.

2014 we brought Google deep mind in January 2016 was the Alph Go moment >> and now people many people didn't notice

in May 2016 we announced our first TPU.

>> Yeah. So it was clear to me in 2016 seeing all that we are about to go through another platform shift and and

that was the uh uh bet on a full stack bet on setting up Google to be a AI first company you know and since then we have been making a lot of progress there

so many breakthroughs coming from Google including transformer we were putting it in our products in BERT and mum and making search better launch Google

Photos and so on. But obviously with the generative AI moment I I realized the window was even bigger like you know that that people were ready to use the technology at scale.

>> Yeah.

>> Consumers, developers and so on. So how

do you respond to a moment like that?

And you know for us it was about we kick kicked off Gemini as a project and across Google brain and uh Google deep mind and as part of that then deciding

to bring the teams together in as Google deep mind we really ramped up our investments in our infrastructure data centers TPUs GPUs and so on. it is

then uh you know getting getting the company to move at a faster cadence right you now have the technology and once the GDM team started shipping Gemini

uh and you know you can talk about the series of Gemini milestones we have worked through and it's been great to have you >> for a lot of the journey driving it too

and and and now how do you make sure you manifest it in all our products there many many products which touch billions of users right how do you can search to iterate with the power of what these

models can do and and so that's been the journey but you know you know you can step back and understand that framework and it's so exciting because for the first time you

many when you have a full stack approach each layer when it innovates it flows through all the way on the top >> this is what I tell people about pre-training I'm like the fact that pre-training for deep mind is working so well in the Gemini models it's like

post- trainining and RL is like this accelerant of the underlying capability And I feel like our infrastructure is is a similar story.

>> Absolutely. You make your infrastructure better. Uh you make the models better at

better. Uh you make the models better at pre-training, post-raining, uh test time compute, uh where have you or how do you take those capabilities and then

manifest it in products, right? How does

nano banana show up in your products?

Generative UI in search with AI mode, right? So you're expressing it at all

right? So you're expressing it at all these layers and not to mention being able to take that and give it give it to developers who are then innovating on

top, right? And that's what creates this

top, right? And that's what creates this multiplicative effect uh and and it's always incredibly uh thrilling to watch.

But you know always had this long-term vision of uh how we can do it. Some of

this took time because because we have a full stack approach when we had to respond to this Gen AI moment like I remember we were short on capacity. So

when we um you know we had to invest to ramp up all these things to get it to the scale so that that so you had a fixed cost around it.

>> Yeah. So if you were on the outside, it looked like we were quiet or we were behind but we were putting all the building blocks in place and then executing on top of it. We are on the

other side now, right? And which is what uh you can see the pace at which teams are moving forward.

>> Yeah, it's uh it's been incredible to see this. Um you mentioned this like

see this. Um you mentioned this like Gemini showing up in all of our products and I think I was talking to Josh and Tulsi about this and Corey about this.

Um, I feel like the actually the challenge for some of these launches now is is SIM shipping and and maybe not even from a product perspective, but capacity and the sort of how do you make sure that the models show up really well across all these different product

experiences. um I feel like has

experiences. um I feel like has introduced a new like we've almost Cory made the comment something to the effect of like we've figured out how to do the models and obviously there's more that we need to do but like deploying them

across all of Google's product surfaces is extremely hard and it it gets me to this um and I I sort of had this realization at IO this year of and I want to gut check this with you because

I don't maybe maybe you have a different perspective but historically like other than maybe your your Gaia or your Google account there hasn't been there wasn't this through line across like this whole suite of different products that Google

has. Everything from cloud to Whimo to

has. Everything from cloud to Whimo to search to everything else to Gmail. Um,

and now it feels like Gemini is this throughine across literally every single one of our products which is just such a it it feels like there's something magic there uh that is happening. I don't

know. I don't know what your reaction is to that.

>> I think I think Gemini I know it's a good observation. I think Gemini to me

good observation. I think Gemini to me is like a much more uh it's a very clear manifestation of what what is the AI first strategy.

>> Yeah.

>> Because now you have something tangible like Gemini which people can uh understand and Gemini you're right improves everything from search to

YouTube to cloud uh to VHO. What I loved about the Gemini 3 launch you talked about SIM shipping. We shipped it across many of our products.

But it was fascinating for me to see, you know, on X, it could be Copilot or Replet or Figma, you know, people all coming together. They're also sim

coming together. They're also sim shipping.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Right. And and to me, that's innovation at scale, right? It's not just us. Uh

it's other other companies in the world.

Uh it's been extraordinary to see.

>> Yeah. It's awesome. One of the other threads and obviously the Nano Banana Pro moment. Uh I'm sure you've spent a

Pro moment. Uh I'm sure you've spent a bunch of time playing around with the model. I've the people are going crazy

model. I've the people are going crazy with it which is awesome.

>> I have to keep asking did we improve the productivity of the world or or is it like I'm is it a net progress or not?

The infographics seem amazing.

>> They do.

>> And I think as we move beyond the fund stage, you know, I just saw OnX I think Ben Budgerin had tweeted this infographic of his scorewave analysis.

So you know actually made me look through that thing to try and understand it. One of the things PowerPoint many

it. One of the things PowerPoint many years ago unleashed is people kept making more and more slides like you know always used to so much information and it kept expanding

like maybe with Nano Banana Pro we are back to a phase by which we can kind of compress it and give it to the world in a more digestible way. Yeah, that that was going to be exactly where I was going. Like there's something I've

going. Like there's something I've historically been personally skeptical about like how useful a lot of the gen media models would be for the world. And

like obviously it's useful from an entertainment perspective, but it felt like Nano Banana Pro crossed the chasm specifically with infographics and actually grounding with Google search in

that um of like actually like I I believe I I can see very clearly how this is part of Google's mission of like organizing the world's information information and actually making it universally accessible to people with

those infographics. Like it's just it it

those infographics. Like it's just it it blew me away. like it was so interesting and I feel like it's a great reminder of like we're going to see those use cases and I think the Netto Banana team if I remember correctly from one of the

pieces of content we were doing they were like yeah we weren't even like it's not like they were trying to make infographics work really well it just happened as the model got really good and and text rendering capabilities

improved so much which is fascinating >> fascinating the other thing shows me is how much latent creativity is there in the world >> yeah so one of the other uh beautiful things we're witnessing is I think like

people are going to express themselves elves and we giving them the tools to do it the way they're thinking it in their head right and so I think I think that I

think if otherwise we've been constrained by the tools in front of people you may not have realized it but we are creating more and more expressive tools and they're more and more

accessible to you know more and more people and so watching that you know it's incredible to see as well. Yeah, I'

I've got another question about that in a second, but one of uh I'll give Tulsi credit for this. Tulsi had suggested when we were talking yesterday to ask you about this uh because she was curious what um sort of like as you see

these launches happen in these like large tentpole moments for Google, what is your what is your success barometer for these moments? Is it like the reception online? Is it like you know

reception online? Is it like you know what does the adoption look like on day one? Or like how are you measuring like

one? Or like how are you measuring like is this thing actually moving the needle for Google? You know, look, I'm uh I'm

for Google? You know, look, I'm uh I'm pretty active on launch day trying to understand what's working. I'm looking

for feedback. Um both, you know, an example, I'm on X trying to understand like C is people average users how they're experiencing the product. I

probably ping people back saying, look, you know, this is a valid point, we should address it. So, in some sense, I'm looking at that trying to assess it.

You know, it's clear to me teams internally are using Gemini itself to kind of collect collate. We have great dashboards and and so I try to take in across a variety of sources. I'm one of

one of those people. I need to feel it firsthand, right? So I get reports uh

firsthand, right? So I get reports uh but I'm out there trying to understand how people are uh using it, what they are posting, right? And you know and and

I think that is important. But I walk walk over to some people who all have these big screens with multiple dashboards looking at QPS and you know understanding how the usage is worried

about capacity but all that gives you a real sense of what people are uh uh doing saying but that's how I do it.

It's combination of monitoring stuff online, talking to people, walking around, sitting down with people. You

know, I I want to get particularly the first day. It really helps me get a

first day. It really helps me get a sense of what's working, what's not working well.

>> Yeah. I feel like you can feel the excitement in the in the office right now too.

>> I can't walk out anywhere without some version of some banana. There's a

million I don't know who did that, but uh kudos to the events or facilities team for somehow bringing 100,000 bananas into this building and and making it happen. The the exciting part

is this is just sort of the first chapter of or the first page of the the Gemini 3 chapter. We don't have Flash yet. We don't have any any of our other

yet. We don't have any any of our other sort of models in the in the 3.0 category. We shipped Gemini 2.5 Pro and

category. We shipped Gemini 2.5 Pro and actually as I was looking at a bunch of the benchmarks like even 2.5 2.5 Pro is not soda on everything. Um obviously

competitors have caught up but even 2.5 Pro right now is still like bestin-class at a bunch of capabilities and sort of taking it a step further with with 3.

Now 2.5 Pro was Google IO. Yeah. And and

you know and you could sense that uh it was a big step up. I think one way I feel great is and you know MS Corore and

team the GDM team is on a good cadence right so we are uh kind of every 6 months or so so pushing that frontier

and it gets harder right because you're you are yeah you're right 2.5 pro is a very good model so to kind of clearly take a meaningful leap from that I think

it's hard but that's what uh you know uh that that's what makes it exciting progress. I know you're always excited

progress. I know you're always excited about flash, which is working on and is coming.

>> You're excited about flash because you it allows you to serve more people.

>> Yeah.

>> And in that parade of Frontier, it really uh makes a difference.

>> So, I'm excited for 3.0 Flash. I think

it's going to be a very very good model.

Uh might be our best one yet. Uh right.

And we'll see. uh what's great is teams are internally um you know our pre-training teams are thinking about the next version and and so

this culture of uh uh you know relentlessly uh innovating and and and shipping uh I think I think makes this moment special uh special and you know

it definitely feels like there's going to be a lot of exciting progress going back to the full stack at all layers of the stack uh as we go into 2026.

Yeah, I have a goofy question because because Josh sort of uh inspired me with his goofy answer about launch day rituals uh >> with his dried Cheerios.

>> It was his dried Cheerios, which is weird. And I need to keep putting Josh

weird. And I need to keep putting Josh on blast because I think it's funny and it's uh >> I'm like, next time I see Josh, I'm going to be walking around with a carton of milk to to >> to help him so that he doesn't have to eat dried Cheerios anymore. Do you have

any weird interesting uh launch day rituals or is it is it just trying to trying to make it through the day? I

it's um you know my the the normally I mean the morning ritual I almost always have is I kind of wake up and catch up on what's happening in the world.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. I consume in fact I don't even check like Google email because the way I think about it is if something interesting has happened about Google it'll be there in the news anyway. So I

kind of like try to step back and take in the news. That's what I do. So launch

day ritual becomes our products and you know when we are in the news so trying to understand uh to your earlier question about how it's work. So that's

my uh main main routine and uh I kind of try on launch days to have a bit of a less structured day so that I can go spend it time you know I I love walking

to the teams which worked on the products maybe seeing them seeing how they feel about what they shipped. So

that engagement to me matters a lot.

Yeah.

>> Yeah. I I have another sort of uh question along this line which is I have a interesting observation. I think

Dennis and others have talked about this maybe internally but there's this uh micro kitchen inside of the creating canopy office where a lot of the sort of action is happening from a deep mind

perspective and every time I'm there it makes obviously Google is big and huge and global and there's all this stuff happening. the the MK that blue MK makes

happening. the the MK that blue MK makes Google feel small uh to me and I'm curious if there's like something interesting there which is like how you it feels small and intimate um and I'm

curious how you've >> oh it it so reminds me of early Google um you know obviously you know I I I I

go there quite often and you know it could be you know you have Sergey there and you have people like I mean Jeff and Sanjay P program still and they're

making their uh espressos.

>> If people nothing encapsulates our culture better than than watching the precision with which people make their espressos in that micro kitchen, right?

I would never dare make an espresso there, right? you know and I I know a

there, right? you know and I I know a lot about how to make good espresso but I feel a bit intimidated uh you know amongst that group but you know no m

korai oral just last week alone walking around you know it's very dense in talent people are exchange constantly people are visiting there's a very uh

great uh exchange of ideas and so I love that you know kind of reminds me of uh how the company used to be in uh in our early days um you know some of our

serving team uh at Emma and people are there and you know that's where when I when I mention I'll probably go look at the QPS it's you know I'm hovering over these people's screens trying to

understand what's going on so it's definitely a favorite part of uh I think how the company works >> yeah my my Google feature request is we need to we need to somehow remake these MKs across across all the PAs or something like that I don't know how

that happens >> I mean you know there are like you know I uh like you know uh there are other teams teams which which have versions of these and I think and it really helps

pull people back into the office uh because you realize the value for when you're there that exchange of ideas you can still go back and have focused time uh wherever you're working but you know

that that moment really helps a lot I think >> yeah a lot of this AI story that you've talked about so far has been like us making these really really long-term investments um and sort of setting the

company up for success l like 10 years ago um and And I'm curious how you think about like right now or obviously and and the the bets were right like cloud cloud has worked out really well.

Whimo's worked out really well. Quantum

hopefully will work out really well.

Just announced a bunch of other like I the quantum stuff goes over my head but I keep vibe coding experiences to try to understand what they're talking that it was one of the ways in which I was like

testing asking Gemini 3 to help yeah >> understand a layer deeper on these topics is just fascinating. Yeah, it's

it's uh it brings anything to life, which I'm happy we went with that uh that tagline. But how do you think about

that tagline. But how do you think about like what are is it just like infrastructure that's like this next 10-year bet or like do we like we've we know AI is the thing so that's what all the eggs are in that basket now or like

I'm curious how you think about like what are the next you know future facing 10 years look like and where we're making the bets now to set ourselves up for that ne next layer of success. Oh,

look, I think it's always important, right? You know, going 10 10 years back,

right? You know, going 10 10 years back, it was the bet on AI, you know, in a deep way, in a full stack way. It was a bet on saying we're going to build other big new businesses, diversifying the

company, bet on YouTube, betting on cloud. Uh Google was as cloud native as

cloud. Uh Google was as cloud native as a company you can ever imagine, but we weren't fully providing it outside. So,

that was a deep big scale bet on cloud.

And you know, Whimo, these things take time. And Whimo is a long bet and I

time. And Whimo is a long bet and I think we are now seeing that inflection point around around Whimo. There's

always these future bets, right? Quantum

computing is an amazing bet. I think in about 5 years we'll be having breathless excitement about quantum hopefully like like we having with AI today.

But I'm constantly thinking in that time frame. One example of this is project

frame. One example of this is project suncatcher >> two weeks ago where we announced we're going to build data centers in space.

Obviously, it's a moonshot. Some of it looks crazy today, but you know, when you when you truly step back and envision the amount of compute we're going to need, it it starts making sense

and it's a matter of time. And so, how do you make progress on that? You work

back work back and have 27 milestones and and get get underway. So, in 2027, hopefully we'll have some TPU somewhere in space. Uh maybe we'll meet a Tesla

in space. Uh maybe we'll meet a Tesla Roadster, which is going around there, too. So, it'll be fun. But that's an

too. So, it'll be fun. But that's an example of the kind of uh long-term projects you want to undertake and do isomorphic with alpha fold uh and wing

with drone delivery.

We are cooking up exciting work on robotics. Uh so you know so you take

robotics. Uh so you know so you take that long-term view and keep keep making progress. When I saw TPUs going to

progress. When I saw TPUs going to space, I pinged uh I pinged Demis and I said we should we should fund a moon rover and put Gemini on device and then have have it sort of explore the moon.

Uh great it'd be a great marketing campaign even if it's not uh scientifically super useful. So

>> who knows maybe the project is underway somewhere.

>> Yeah, I'm I'm sure it is. Um this you mentioned this thread before which is the capabilities continuing to go up sort of like uh raising the floor for everyone to go and and be creative and I actually personally feel this way like I

don't feel super like artistically creative by default and yet I can like tackle these tasks that historically I would have had to have been. Um and it empowers me like I feel like I've actually become more creative in like

the way I think about the world because of these tools and like not being worried about not being able to to do something. I think vibe coding is this

something. I think vibe coding is this like massive one and there's this like moment where this force that is like one of the most economically powerful things in in history which is creating software

and being able to code is now in reach of so many so many more people. Um and

I'm curious uh how you obviously you you do vibe code sometimes. Um I'm curious how you've been thinking about that moment of like AI builders being able to more than just like traditional software

engineers be able to build stuff. You

know what an exciting uh moment you know it's almost like how the internet you know suddenly blogs appeared many more people became writers if you will right

and what YouTube did uh many more people uh became creators and you know you can feel that happening

on the coding side even within Google just a sharp increase in in a set of people who have submitted their first cls

Right? And uh and it's because of these

Right? And uh and it's because of these tools that are making it more accessible, right? You know, maybe

accessible, right? You know, maybe you're a product marketing person, you have an idea. In the past, you would have described it.

Now, maybe you're kind of vip coding it a little bit and and and showing it to people.

>> So, you can tangibly see that uh you know, come to work. I was just speaking with someone on my team who doesn't code but was some trying to teach a son uh

Spanish conjugation and just like you know one-shoted in Gemini 3 a animated HTML page to describe uh this uh this to

his uh son. See, when you hear stories like that and and that person is in our comm's team, right? So, you can you can kind of see how people are beginning to

do things and so it's very very promising. uh you know in the limited

promising. uh you know in the limited time I have and I played around with it it's almost like you know just not just swipe coding but just these IDEs now it's making coding so much more

enjoyable right like of course I'm not doing large working on large code bases where you have to really get it right the security has to be there so you know that you know those people should weigh in but

>> but I definitely think I feel things are getting more approachable it's getting exciting again and and the amazing thing is it's only going to get better now. Something I always used to

better now. Something I always used to tell about Whimo when whenever people would talk to me about is remember this is the worst Whimo will ever drive, right? It'll only get better.

right? It'll only get better.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> It's a version of all these tools which we are doing. Um you know uh VIP coding with Gemini 3 and AI studio uh you know

it's both amazing to see and and it's the worst it'll ever be.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Both are simultaneously true. And

so I mean it in a sense that you're going to see a lot of progress ahead. So

I think it's definitely exciting time and can't wait to see what people out there in the world come up with it.

>> Yeah, it is awesome. I think my my last question is like what's next? What can

we be excited for? Um lots of cool things in the pipeline but anything top of mind?

>> I think some folks need some sleep. Uh I

I probably you know hopefully the team for the teams all of us uh you know uh get a bit of rest but >> look I think I'm excited for the uh Gemini road map. I'm excited at how it's

coming through all our products uh products. We're also shipping new

products. We're also shipping new things, right? I I I love flow. I've

things, right? I I I love flow. I've

been playing around with flow uh uh notebookm uh you know it has a passionate growing community and and uh it's amazing you know seen journalists like work on it,

people doing their PhDs like really doing all the research in it. Um so uh there's a lot more to come.

>> I'm excited. Thank you Sundar for sitting down. Um and thank you everyone

sitting down. Um and thank you everyone for watching uh release notes. We'll see

you in the next episode.