Google’s Gemini family has expanded rapidly since its debut in late 2023, offering different models for different needs. The first wave, Gemini 1.0, included Ultra, Pro and Nano. Ultra was the most powerful, beating OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 across multimodal benchmarks. Pro was positioned as the versatile everyday model, while Nano was designed for on-device tasks like running directly on the Pixel 8 Pro.
In early 2024, Google followed up with the Gemini 1.5 series, which added more to the already capable model. The standout was Gemini 1.5 Pro, which introduced a massive 1 million-token context window and stronger reasoning abilities, making it ideal for long, complex workflows. The company also released 1.5 Flash variants, optimized for speed and efficiency.
By late 2024, the focus shifted to Gemini 2.0. These models included Flash and Flash-Lite, which offered faster, cheaper multimodal performance, while an experimental 2.0 Pro pushed further into advanced reasoning, live multimodal APIs, and better integration with external tools. CEO Sundar Pichai framed Gemini 2.0’s debut as the start of the “Agent Era,” when AI models begin performing tasks on your behalf.
Most recently, Google unveiled the Gemini 2.5 series. This includes 2.5 Flash, the new default for speed and efficiency, and 2.5 Pro, currently Google’s most advanced reasoning model. Gemini 2.5 Pro has quickly topped benchmark leaderboards thanks to its improved problem-solving, coding ability, and audio features, while 2.5 Flash-Lite caters to developers who want cost savings without giving up too much power.
Beyond the core models, Google has also introduced specialized tools under the Gemini brand. Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has become a viral hit thanks to its ability to edit photos with character consistency, realism, and prompt-based precision. On the video side, Veo 3 now generates higher-quality clips, including vertical 9:16 video at 1080p resolution, and costs significantly less to use than earlier versions. Google has plans to integrate Veo 3 into YouTube Shorts, making AI-generated video even more accessible.
Together, these models highlight how Gemini has gone from a simple chatbot rebrand to a full-stack AI ecosystem, spanning everyday use cases, advanced reasoning, creative media generation, and enterprise deployment. Whether you’re editing an image, creating a video, or building an app, there’s a Gemini model designed for the job
What is Gemini?
The Gemini model family offers a multimodal design, meaning it doesn't only train on text. Gemini models can process and generate not only written language but also images, video, audio, and even computer code. This approach puts it in the same league as OpenAI’s GPT-4o and now ChatGPT-5, and as of Gemini 2.0 the system can also output across those modalities.
In typical Google fashion, the most advanced versions of Gemini have been quietly iterated over months before launch. The latest builds introduce features that more hyped rivals sometimes overlook, such as vertical video support in Veo 3 or prompt-driven photo editing with Nano Banana. These tools have quickly gone viral, drawing millions of new users to the Gemini ecosystem.
On the open-source side, the variety is staggering. There are now tens of thousands of Gemini variations on Hugging Face alone, fine-tuned for different languages, domains, and use cases. But that sheer breadth has also led to confusion. The rapid-fire rollouts of Gemini 1.5, Gemini 2.0, and now Gemini 2.5 Pro/Flash have blurred the lines between core models and their specialized offshoots.
The first thing to understand is that Google mixes model technology and branded applications under the same Gemini umbrella. Gemini Pro, Flash, Nano, Ultra, 2.5 Pro, Veo, Nano Banana — these aren’t separate products so much as different flavors or extensions of the same underlying AI stack. Once you realize that Gemini is less a single model and more an ecosystem, the naming starts to make sense.
1. Models
In the beginning was DeepMind, the AI lab launched in London in 2010. This foundation stone of the whole AI industry delivered the LaMDA, PaLM, and Gato AI models to the world. Gemini is the latest iteration of this generational family.
Version 1.0 of the Gemini model was launched in three flavors, Ultra, Pro and Nano. As the names suggest, the models ranged from high power down to petite versions designed to run on phones and other small devices.
Note that much of the confusion from the subsequent launches has come about because of Google's philosophical tussle between its search and AI businesses.
AI cannibalism of search has always been a sword hanging above the company’s head, and has contributed mightily to its ‘will they, won’t they’ attitude towards releasing AI products.
Gemini 1.5, released ten months ago, was an incremental improvement of the original model, incorporating mixture of experts (MoE) tech, a one million token context window and new architecture. Since that time we’ve seen the launch of Gemini 1.5 Flash, Gemini 1.5 Pro-002 and Gemini 1.5 Flash-002 - the latter released just three months ago.
At the same time the company also made a surprising foray into open model territory, with the launch of the free Gemma product. These 2B and 7B parameter models were seen as a direct response to Meta’s release of the Llama model family. Gemma 2.0 was released five months later.
Gemini 2.0 launched in December 2024, and is billed as a model for the agentic era. The first version to be released was Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental, a high performance multimodal model, which supports tool use like Google search, and function calling for code generation.
Within weeks the company launched Gemini 2.0 Experimental Advanced, apparently the full version of the current generation. We say apparently because at this point in time nobody’s really sure what’s full and what’s early code.
What can be said with certainty is that Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental is an extremely capable and performant AI model all round.
Gemini models
- Gemini 1.0 Series (Dec 2023)
- Gemini 1 Ultra – Flagship multimodal model, most powerful in the first release
- Gemini 1 Pro – Mid-range, versatile model for general use (power + efficiency balance)
- Gemini 1 Nano – Lightweight, on-device model (ships in Pixel 8 Pro)
- Gemini 1.5 Series (Early 2024)
- Gemini 1.5 Flash – Fast, cheaper model optimized for efficiency
- Gemini 1.5 Pro – Advanced reasoning, huge 1M token context window, slower + more expensive
- Gemini 2.0 Series (Late 2024)
- Gemini 2.0 Flash (Experimental) – Faster, multimodal, tuned for responsiveness
- Gemini 2.0 Flash (Thinking) – Adds reasoning depth on top of speed
- Gemini 2.0 Pro / Experimental Advanced – Stronger reasoning, tool use, live multimodality, positioned as the start of Google’s “Agent Era”
- Gemini 2.5 Series (Mid–Late 2025)
- Gemini 2.5 Flash – Default fast, efficient model, good balance of speed + quality
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite – Ultra-efficient, cheapest option for cost-sensitive apps
- Gemini 2.5 Pro – Google’s most advanced reasoning model yet (improved coding, math, audio, and multilingual support), top of the line
- Specialized Gemini Models
- Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) – Viral image editing model with character consistency, photorealism, and seamless blending
- Veo 3 – Text-to-video generation model with 1080p + vertical 9:16 output, faster and cheaper than prior versions
- Where you’ll find them
- Consumer products: Gemini app, Docs, Gmail, Android (Gemini Assistant), YouTube (Veo 3 coming to Shorts)
- Developer access: Google AI Studio, Vertex AI, Hugging Face variants (~50k+ fine-tunes available)
1. Applications
Google is both a research and a product company. DeepMind and Google AI lead the research and release the models. The other side of Google takes those models and puts them into products. This includes hardware, software and services.
Chatbots
Google’s chatbot narrative has evolved rapidly, and, true to Silicon Valley form, the naming conventions have gotten a little murky.
Originally launched as Bard, the chatbot was rebranded as Gemini in early 2024, merging with Duet AI in a new Android app deployment. Since then, Gemini chat has become the conversational backbone across a host of Google products — from Android Assistant to Chrome, Google Photos, and Workspace. Today, both the classic Assistant and Gemini Chat coexist on Android, giving users a choice between familiarity and brainier AI.
Enter Gemini Live: Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Advance Voice Mode. It enables low-latency, natural, back-and-forth voice conversations, complete with visual cues and deep app integration. Importantly, this feature now reaches into Google Workspace and enterprise accounts, not just personal profiles.
Gemini is also moving into your living room. Starting October 1, 2025, Gemini for Home will roll out on Google Home and Nest devices, gradually replacing Google Assistant. It’s designed for tasks like media playback, smart-home control, cooking help, and more intuitive conversation. Gemini Live will power this smarter assistant, keeping it hands-free and proactive.
Meanwhile, the Gemini app keeps getting smarter, too. It now supports:
- Audio file uploads, with free users getting up to 10 minutes and five prompts per day. AI Pro and Ultra users get much more generous quotas and file-type flexibility.
- Powerful image editing capabilities via the latest model (think outfit changes, style transfers, multi-stage edits), all built on the Gemini 2.5 Flash Image engine (aka Nano Banana). Every Gemini-generated image includes visible and SynthID watermarks.
- Photo-to-video conversions powered by Veo 3: eight-second clips with synchronized sound that are now available to Pro and Ultra users, right within the Gemini app.
Products
While Gemini as a chatbot might get most of the new models and attention from AI aficionados, most of the eyes on AI will be going to Gemini on mobile.
This comes in two forms, first through the Gemini App on iPhone and Android, and then through its deep integration into the Android operating system.
On Android developers can even use the Gemini Nano model in their own apps without having to use a cloud-based, or costly model to perform basic tasks.
The deep integration allows for system functions to be triggered from Gemini, as well as the use of Gemini Live — the AI voice assistant — to play songs and more.
Experiments
The latest Gemini model launch has been accompanied by a series of major Google application releases or previews tied into the new model. The list is long and impressive. Some of them include:
- Project Astra: spectacular demonstration of the power of visual understanding for AI assistants
- Project Mariner: a great showcase of the power of multimodal AI for real world use cases
- NotebookLM: a stunning new paradigm for research and study applications
- Deep Research: hugely powerful agentic research tool with deep search ability and huge contexts
3. Platforms
Outside of the mobile and web-based versions of Gemini there are some premium and developer focused products. These usually offer the most advanced models and features such as Deep Research in Gemini Advanced.
- Gemini Advanced: Google’s sophisticated subscription-based gateway to its AI products.
- Google Cloud: Pay as you go on-ramp to the full range of Google’s enterprise and consumer products
- AI Studio: Free AI playground to test and evaluate the Gemini range of AI models
- Vertex AI: AI development platform integrated as part of Google Cloud services
- Google One: Subscription-based cloud storage service for consumers
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