Google says Gemini hit 1 billion users faster than any other of its products

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the company's AI assistant Gemini has crossed 1 billion monthly active users. While 13 other Google products have previously reached that threshold, none did so as quickly as Gemini.

It's worth noting the figure counts only people who directly opened the Gemini app or web interface to submit a prompt or use Gemini Live — even a single use within a month counts toward the total. It does not include people who encounter Gemini indirectly, such as through email organization in Gmail, document summaries in Drive, or AI features in Google Search.

How people are using Gemini

Josh Woodward, the Google vice president overseeing Gemini, shared additional details about usage patterns. About 63 percent of active users rely on voice input, and a growing share are voice-only users. Among those using Gemini Live, 20 percent share their camera or screen feed to get assistance.

It's well known that students turn to AI tools for schoolwork. Woodward said 38 percent of school-related requests include an attachment, prompting Google to prepare a new set of study tools set to launch in the coming weeks.

On image generation, growth has been especially fast: the billion users are collectively creating around 150 million images every day. Woodward said businesses are using these images, generated with the "Nano Banana" technology, for marketing materials, though many are likely memes and jokes circulating online. All the images carry a SynthID watermark, though it remains unclear how much that will help distinguish authentic content from AI-generated material in the future.