'Gemini who?': Rivals dunk on Google's delayed frontier AI

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is likely to face questions about its delayed frontier AI during earnings.Bloomberg/Getty ImagesGoogle's delayed 3.5 Pro model has competitors taking jabs.

One analyst said the delay has "shifted perception from leading edge to trailing edge.""Gemini who?" wrote Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, on X.

In the AI race, the throne is never safe. Just ask Google.After the success of Gemini 3, Google found itself in a strong position at the end of 2025.

As of this week, the situation is a little shakier.While the company just rolled out three faster, more cost-effective models, it continues to delay its next frontier model, Gemini 3.5 Pro, and it's unclear whether this week's launches will be enough to keep users and investors happy in the interim.

Some of Google's competitors are using the opportunity to land a few jabs.Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, wrote on X "gemini who?" in response to a leaderboard that ranked Meta's Spark model above one launched by Google this week.

Thibault Sottiaux, a member of technical staff at OpenAI, also took an apparent jab at the search giant. In a post on X, Google's Logan Kilpatrick announced that pre-training on Gemini 4 — the next big milestone model — had begun. "Hope it finishes one day too!"

Sottiaux replied.Google declined to comment.'Too early to count anyone out'Google's delay is particularly glaring because OpenAI and Anthropic have rolled out new top-tier models in recent weeks.

The pushback of Gemini 3.5 Pro has "shifted perception from leading edge to trailing edge," said Josh Beck, an analyst at Raymond James, in a note this week. He said he saw this as a byproduct of the fast pace of change among the labs right now.

At the same time, Google's business has been humming along nicely in recent quarters, with strong momentum across Search, YouTube, Cloud, and other areas benefiting from Google's AI advancements. Google is also betting that faster, more cost-effective models may be a winning