Inside the making of Gemini 3 - how Google's slow and steady approach won the AI race (for now)

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

When I walked into a conference room in Google's San Francisco building last week, I expected to find the typical tech briefing setup with rows of chairs facing a wall of screens and a corporate voice managing a slide deck. 

Instead, I found myself in what looked more like group therapy with a large circle of cozy chairs arranged around the center of the room. About a dozen carefully selected testers and creators, including myself, sat down with the team behind Gemini 3, which had just gone public, and Nano Banana Pro, which would debut the next day.

Also: Google's Gemini 3 is finally here and it's smarter, faster, and free to access

That rapid release schedule couldn't have been more telling. The AI industry is in the midst of an ...