If you felt that artificial intelligence was advancing at a rapid pace, Google has added more fuel to the fire. The tech giant announced that it has opened its Gemini 2.5, the enhanced version of its "digital brain," for public use. This means a smarter AI tool, with upgraded capabilities according to the company’s statements, is now available for all of us to experience directly.
The announcement comes just over the weekend when the major competitor, OpenAI, struggled with heavy traffic on its servers following a new feature that excited users around the world.
So what does Google promise with Gemini 2.5? According to the company, this is not just another small update. The new model is expected to better understand context in long conversations, similar to how a person follows the flow of an ongoing discussion. It is expected to perform better in data analysis, programming code writing, and even creative writing, such as songs or short stories.
Google emphasizes a particular improvement in understanding the subtle nuances of language and reducing the model’s tendency to “invent” answers that are not based on facts – a well-known problem in the AI world called "hallucinations." Their goal, they say, is for conversations with Gemini to feel more natural, fluid, and reliable than before.
As mentioned, Google’s release comes at an interesting time. Just last weekend, many users who tried OpenAI’s new image and animation creation tool encountered difficulties.
Thousands in Israel and worldwide were excited by the ability to create animated images or complex imagery, such as celebrities in fictional scenes, and flooded the servers. The traffic was so heavy that it caused significant slowdowns in the company's services, and there were even brief periods when the service was unavailable entirely. This incident illustrated how much the public craves innovations in the field of artificial intelligence, and how intense the competition between the tech giants in this domain has become.
Among other things, images circulated on social media showing leaders who had passed away, such as Begin, Golda Meir, and Ben Gurion, walking down Kaplan Street wearing T-shirts calling for the release of hostages, images of ultra-Orthodox individuals against military conscription wearing IDF uniforms, and many anime animations of everyday life and celebrities.
At one point, the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, tweeted that the heavy usage had caused significant strain on the company's resources, adding: "We need to sleep too."