TL;DR: The Gemini app had 950 million monthly active users in the second quarter of 2026, Alphabet says. Google's models processed about 22 billion API tokens a minute in the same quarter, and Google Cloud revenue grew 82% to $24.8 billion.
In May 2026 Google said Gemini 3.5 Pro would roll out the next month. On September 14 its model page still reads “3.5 Pro coming soon”, and the top Pro model in the API is 3.1 Pro, a preview since February. The Flash line moved from 3.5 to 3.8 in those same 15 weeks.
- 1AI Mode in Search passed 1 billion monthly active users a year after it had 100 million in the US and India.
- 2Alphabet’s free cash flow was minus $5.9 billion in the June 2026 quarter, after it spent $44.9 billion on capital equipment.
- 3Google says it cut the unit cost of serving Gemini by 78% over 2025.
- 4Sundar Pichai told analysts Google needs Gemini 4, a larger base model now in training, to compete at the next frontier.
How Many People Use Gemini?
The Gemini app added 500 million monthly users in a year, and daily users tripled. Alphabet put the app at more than 450 million monthly active users on its July 2025 call and at 950 million on its July 2026 call.
The climb was not even. On Alphabet’s rounded figures, the app gained 200 million users in the third quarter of 2025, then 100 million in the fourth. Alphabet gave no user count in April 2026. It called the first quarter its “strongest quarter ever” for consumer AI plans, driven by the Gemini app.
Search is where most people meet Gemini without opening an app. AI Overviews had over 2 billion monthly users in 200+ countries by July 2025. AI Mode, the chat-style search tab, had 100 million monthly users then, only in the US and India. A year later it passed 1 billion after a global rollout.
That shift matters to anyone who sells online, because the answer now comes before the blue links. Brands that want to see how often Gemini and other assistants mention them can compare the best LLM tracking tools built for that job.
Downloads and time spent
Appfigures estimates Gemini had 32 million downloads worldwide in April 2026, fifth among all apps. On Apple’s App Store it was second that month with 15.4 million, behind ChatGPT’s 15.5 million. Gemini had been first on the App Store in March.
Use per person still trails ChatGPT. Sensor Tower’s State of AI 2026 puts Gemini at about 100 minutes per user per month, against about 215 for ChatGPT and 120 for Claude. The same report says ChatGPT’s share of unique AI assistant users fell below 50% for the first time in March 2026, as Gemini and Claude gained.
Web traffic
On the web, gemini.google.com is the second-largest AI chatbot site. Similarweb estimates 2.6 billion visits in August 2026, down 2.59% from July, with visits lasting 6 minutes 52 seconds on average.
The United States sent 12.6% of those visits, then Japan at 7.27%, India at 6.42%, Brazil at 5.71% and South Korea at 4.85%. About 63% of visits came direct. Our ChatGPT statistics and Claude AI statistics cover the two rivals in the chart.
How Much Do Developers Use Gemini?
API traffic tripled in three quarters. Alphabet counts tokens its customers send to its first-party models through the API: 7 billion a minute in the September 2025 quarter, and about 22 billion a minute by June 2026, as stated in the Q2 2026 earnings release.
Demand is running ahead of supply. On the July call Pichai said Google continues “to be supply constrained”, and its finance chief said Google would use more third-party capacity in the third quarter while it builds its own.
The trillion-token club is growing fast. In April 2026 Google counted 330 Cloud customers past 1 trillion tokens over 12 months, and 35 past 10 trillion. By July the first group was nearly 500. More than 2,000 enterprises used over 100 billion tokens each over the same 12 months.
How Many Businesses Use Gemini Enterprise?
Nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 use Gemini Enterprise, Pichai said in July 2026. Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian put it at “over 90%” at a Goldman Sachs conference on September 8, and said 80% of Google Cloud customers now use its AI products.
Gemini Enterprise launched in October 2025 as Google’s AI agent platform for staff. By the February 2026 call, Google had sold more than 8 million paid seats to over 2,800 companies. Paid monthly active users then grew 40% in the first quarter of 2026. Google has not given a newer seat count.
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Software makers build on Gemini too. In February 2026 Google said more than 120,000 enterprises used Gemini, including 95% of the top 20 SaaS companies. It also named Apple as a partner to build the next Apple Foundation Models on Gemini technology, with Google Cloud as Apple’s preferred cloud.
“The lifetime value of a customer who uses our Gemini portfolio in the cloud, over a five-year period we estimate to be 1.5 times.”
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, Goldman Sachs Communacopia, September 8, 2026
How Much Money Does Gemini Make for Google?
Google does not report Gemini revenue on its own. The closest line is Google Cloud, which sells Gemini models, Gemini Enterprise and the chips that run them. Cloud revenue grew from $13.6 billion to $24.8 billion in a year, and its operating margin rose from 20.7% to 35.6%.
| Quarter | Google Cloud revenue | Growth on a year earlier |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | $13.6B | 32% |
| Q3 2025 | $15.2B | 34% |
| Q4 2025 | $17.7B | 48% |
| Q1 2026 | $20.0B | 63% |
| Q2 2026 | $24.8B | 82% |
Part of the Q2 2026 jump came from a new source. Google delivered TPU systems to customer data centers for the first time and began booking that revenue, though its finance chief said growth sped up even without it. Revenue from products built on Google’s generative AI models grew nearly 800% in the first quarter.
Backlog, the signed work not yet billed, moved even faster. It stood at $155 billion at the end of September 2025 and $514 billion by June 2026. The first quarter of 2026 alone added $222 billion, more than the whole backlog at the end of September 2025.
Google expects to recognize more than half of that $514 billion as revenue within 24 months, according to the Q2 2026 call transcript. On the consumer side, Alphabet had 350 million paid subscriptions across its services in April 2026, led by YouTube and Google One, which sells the Google AI plans.
How Much Is Google Spending to Run Gemini?
Alphabet raised its 2026 spending plan twice in six months. It guided to $175 billion to $185 billion in February, then $180 billion to $190 billion in April, and $195 billion to $205 billion in July. For comparison, it spent $91.4 billion on capital equipment in all of 2025.
The quarterly bills show the ramp. Capital spending rose from $22.4 billion in the June 2025 quarter to $35.7 billion in the March 2026 quarter and $44.9 billion in the June 2026 quarter. About 60% of the second-quarter technical infrastructure spend went on servers and 40% on data centers and networking.
That spending pushed free cash flow below zero for the quarter, even with $39.1 billion of operating cash flow. Alphabet raised $49.6 billion from new shares and $20.3 billion from notes in the quarter, and expects capex to “increase significantly in 2027.”
What Are the Latest Gemini Models?
Gemini 3.8 Flash, released on September 2, 2026, is Google’s newest general model. Google released three Flash versions between July 21 and September 2, while the Pro line has not moved since February. The Gemini API release notes date each launch.
Google retires old models fast. Gemini 3 Pro Preview shut down on March 9, 2026, less than four months after launch, and all Gemini 2.0 Flash models went on June 1. Gemini 2.5 Pro and 2.5 Flash are still listed. Our guide to every Gemini AI model explains what each one is for.
“There are areas where we have acknowledged we need to improve. Coding and agentic coding is an example of that.”
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings call, July 22, 2026
Benchmarks
Google’s own model card for Gemini 3.8 Flash compares it with Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol. On three tests the three models finish within 1.3 points of each other: Terminal-bench 2.1 (89.4%), DeepSWE v1.1 (73.7%) and HLE-Verified (54.9%). The rows below are where they split.
Gemini leads on long video, legal agent work and Vals Finance Agent v2 (61.4% to 58.6% for Opus 5). Opus 5 is far ahead on general agent tasks in Terminal-bench 4.0, at 51.8% to Gemini’s 19.1%, and on computer use in OSWorld 2.0. All of these scores come from Google’s own launch table.
How Much Does Gemini Cost?
Gemini 3.8 Flash costs $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens, but only until December 31, 2026. On the Gemini API pricing page both prices double on January 1, 2027, and the same terms apply to 3.7 Flash and 3.6 Flash.
The older Gemini 3.5 Flash still lists at $1.50 input and $9 output. Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview charges $2 and $12 for prompts up to 200,000 tokens, and $4 and $18 above that. The Batch API halves the standard price, and a free tier covers some models with lower limits.
Consumer plans
Google sells AI Plus in more than 160 countries and territories, and AI Pro and Ultra in more than 150. Our DeepSeek statistics show how a much cheaper rival prices its API.
Hire Engineers Who Build With Gemini
With three new Flash models in six weeks and prices set to double in January, teams on the Gemini API need engineers who can test, switch and tune models fast. Second Talent matches companies with pre-vetted LLM developers and AI developers across Asia.
Tell us what you are building and we will send matching profiles.
FAQs
Is Gemini bigger than ChatGPT?
Not on the measures that put them side by side. chatgpt.com drew more than twice Gemini’s web visits in August 2026 (Similarweb), and ChatGPT users spend about twice as long in the app (Sensor Tower). Gemini’s widest reach is inside Google Search, where AI Mode alone has more than 1 billion monthly users.
Is Google Gemini free?
Yes, the Gemini app has a free plan with a Google Account. Paid Google AI plans add higher limits and features such as video generation, from $4.99 a month in the US. Developers also get a free API tier with lower rate limits.
When is Gemini 3.5 Pro coming out?
Google has not published a new date. It said in May 2026 that 3.5 Pro would roll out the following month, and in July that it was “currently in testing”. Its model page still says “coming soon” as of mid-September.
Who owns Gemini?
Google DeepMind, a unit of Google, builds Gemini. Its parent company, Alphabet Inc., reports Gemini usage in its quarterly results but does not report Gemini revenue on its own.
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