Technology & Science
Google Rolls Out Gemini 3 Across Core Services, Putting New AI in Front of Billions
On 18 Nov 2025 Google began activating its Gemini 3 model by default in Search, the Gemini app and Workspace, instantly extending the new AI’s reach to hundreds of millions of users.
Focusing Facts
- Gemini 3 now underpins tools used by ~650 million monthly Gemini-app users and 2 billion monthly AI Overview searchers, according to Google’s launch posts on 18 Nov 2025.
- A class-action suit filed 11 Nov 2025 in San Jose alleges Google quietly switched on Gemini for Gmail, Chat and Meet around 10 Oct 2025, violating the 1967 California Invasion of Privacy Act.
- Alphabet raised its 2025 capital-expenditure target to $93 billion—much of it for AI data-center build-out—to support deployments like Gemini 3.
Context
Tech titans have bundled new engines into core products before—Microsoft welded Internet Explorer into Windows in 1998, sparking antitrust action; Facebook embedded Graph Search in 2013, redrawing data-collection norms. Google’s auto-activation of Gemini echoes those playbooks, but at 2025’s AI scale the stakes are larger: real-time parsing of private mail, photos and video, not just URLs. The launch sits at the intersection of two long arcs: the century-long march toward ubiquitous machine mediation of knowledge (from 1920s radio to 1990s web to today’s LLMs) and the 2010s rise of surveillance capitalism where data is mined first, permissions asked later. If unchecked, default-on multimodal AI could normalize continuous algorithmic oversight as electricity did industrial labor—baking the erosion of privacy and human agency into everyday tools for decades. Conversely, backlash like the San Jose lawsuit may become the 2020s equivalent of the 1974 U.S. Privacy Act, forcing legal guardrails that shape AI’s trajectory for the next 100 years.
Perspectives
Anti–Big Tech/Privacy watchdog outlets
NaturalNews.com — They frame the lawsuit alleging Google secretly flipped Gemini on for all Gmail users as proof that the company is conducting mass, AI-driven surveillance in blatant violation of privacy laws. Storytelling leans into dystopian rhetoric and selective anecdotes, reflecting a long-standing editorial incentive to sensationalize Big Tech threats rather than dissect technical details or legal nuance.
Mainstream business and financial press
UPI, International Business Times, RTTNews, The Siasat Daily — Reporting touts Gemini 3’s release as a milestone that strengthens Google’s competitive positioning in the AI race and opens new monetization paths through integrated search and enterprise tools. Coverage largely parrots corporate blog posts and executive quotes, prioritizing market impact and user numbers while glossing over privacy, labor, or societal risks that don’t move stock prices.
Tech enthusiast/reviewer media
TechRadar, WebProNews — Hands-on reviewers praise Gemini 3 for outperforming ChatGPT and Claude in coding and reasoning tasks, casting it as a breakthrough that could reshape developer workflows. Early-access demos and the appeal of cutting-edge features can tilt reviews toward promotional enthusiasm, with scant scrutiny of longer-term reliability or ethical trade-offs.