This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, Financials), the parent of Google, said its Gemini app has surpassed 1 billion monthly users, giving the company another major milestone in its race against OpenAI.
CEO Sundar Pichai called Gemini Google’s fastest-growing product ever and the 14th company product to cross the 1 billion-user mark.
That scale matters because the AI race is increasingly moving from attracting users to figuring out how to make money from them.
OpenAI recently said its models also reach more than 1 billion active users and has been expanding advertising inside ChatGPT into additional international markets.
Google already owns one of the world’s largest advertising businesses, potentially giving it an advantage if it can connect Gemini usage with its broader ecosystem without hurting the user experience.
Gemini also benefits from Google’s reach across Android, Search, Workspace and other products.
The milestone does not by itself tell investors how profitable Gemini will become.
But with 1 billion users now in place, the bigger question is shifting from whether Google can compete in consumer AI to how much money that audience can eventually generate.
