Live data from Hacker News

Google is winning on every AI front

thealgorithmicbridge.com

191–200 of 851 posts

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#191
post #25

In my experience Claude 3.7 is far superior for coding than Gemini 2.5. I tried it in Cursor and I wanted it to work, as a recent ex-Googler. I repeatedly found it inferior. I think it’s still behind Claud 3.5 for coding. It would decide arbitrarily not to finish tasks and suggest that I do them. It made simple errors and failed to catch them.

It depends on the task, and prompting feels different. I've found that sonnet is possibly better at starting things from scratch and frontend code, while Gemini has been able to one-shot difficult problems and fix bugs that sonnet has struggled with. Switching between them is a frequent occurrence for me. It might be relevant that I've completely stopped using Cursor in favor of other tools/agents.

> It might be relevant that I've completely stopped using Cursor in favor of other tools/agents.

Can you share what you use these days? I switched from cursor to windsurf but also want to play more with Trae and Cline/RooCode

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#192

Google is winning on every front except... marketing (Google has a chatbot?), trust (who knew the founding fathers were so diverse?), safety (where's the 2.5 Pro model card?), market share (fully one in ten internet users on the planet are weekly ChatGPT users), and, well, vibes (who's rooting for big G, exactly?). But I will admit, Gemini Pro 2.5 is a legit good model. So, hats off for that.

Well, Google is also very well placed to integrate with other products that have big market share.

So far this has been nothing but a PM wankfest but if Gemini-in-{Gmail,Meet,Docs,etc} actually gets useful, it could be a big deal.

I also don't think any of those concerns are as important for API users as direct consumers. I think that's gonna be a bugger part of my the market as time goes on.

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#193

I was a loyal Claude user until I decided to try Gemini 2.5. "After all", I thought, "I already use a Pixel phone, so it's integrated with Android. And with Google Drive. And I can get it through my Google One subscription." And now that I'm on it, I don't think I'm going back. Google did it again.

> Google did it again. This is quite vague. What did they do

Ensure I only use them. It happened with search first, then mobile (Pixel), now it's LLMs.

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#194
post #141

Google is the primary target for current US anti-big-tech sentiments that are getting political traction with Lina Khan and Steve Bannon teaming up at a recent conference against US Big Tech companies. J.D. Vance has also expressed that he agrees with Lina Khan and Steve Bannon and would like to see US Big Tech companies like Google be forcibly split up. What will happen with Google's AI wing when Google inevitably g…

Are the administration really going to risk messing with one of their leading AI companies while they are also terrified of China catching up or overtaking them in leading edge AI?

I wouldn't put it past them but I don't think it's a given either.

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you did there, but clearly being ex OpenAI isn't the intellectual or product flex it is: I and every other smart person I know still use ChatGPT (paid) because even now it's the best at what it does and we keep trying Google and Claude and keep coming back. They got and as of now continue to get things right for the most part. If you still aren'ĥt seeing it maybe you should introspect what you're mi…

I don't know your experience doesn't match mine. NotebookLM by Google is in a class of its own in the use case of "provide documents and ask a chat or questions about them" for personal use. ChatGPT and Claude are nowhere near. ChatGPT uses RAG so it "understands" less about the topic and sometimes hallucinate. When it comes to coding Claude 3.5/3.7 embedded in Cursor or stand alone kept giving better results in real…

Time for my next round of Evals then. I had a 40 PR coding streak last weekend with mostly o3-mini-pro, will test the latest 2.5 now.

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#196
post #6

Gemini 2.5 pro is as powerful as everybody says. I still also use Claude Sonnet 3.7 only because the Gemini web UI has issues... (Imagine creating the best AI and then not allowing to attach Python or C files if not renamed .txt) but the way the model is better than anyone else is a "that's another league" experience. They have the biggest search engine and YouTube to leverage the power of the AI they are developing.…

I am not even sure how to use Gemini 2.5 pro ergonomically right now. Cursor and Windsurf both obviously have issues, probably optimized too much around Claude, but what else is there? Is everyone copy pasting into the Google AI studio or what?

Try Gemini 2.5 Pro in Roo Code and never look back

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that DeepSeek continues to open-source, then we can assume that in the future there won't be any "secret sauce" in model architecture. Only data and training/serving infrastructure, and Google is in a good position with regard to both.

Google is also in a great position wrt distribution - to get users at scale, and attach to pre-existing revenue streams. Via Android, Gmail, Docs, Search - they have a lot of reach. YouTube as well, though fit there is maybe less obvious. Combined with the two factors you mention, and the size of their warchest - they are really excellently positioned.

YouTube is very well positioned - all these video generating models etc. I am sure they'll be loads of AI editors too

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#198
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google offering Gemini 2.5 Pro for free, enough to ditch OpenAI, reminds me of an old tactic. Microsoft gained control in the '90s by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows for free, undercutting Netscape’s browser. This leveraged Windows’ dominance to make Explorer the default choice, sidelining competitors and capturing the browser market. By 1998, Netscape’s share plummeted, and Microsoft controlled access to the…

The joke's on them, because I don't have any loyalty to an LLM provider. There's very close to zero switching costs, both on the consumer front and the API front; no real distinguishing features and no network effects; just whoever has the best model at this point in time.

I feel like they’re trying to increase switching costs. eg was huge reluctance to adopt MCP and each had their own tool framework, until it seemed too big to ignore and everyone was just building MCP tools not OpenAI SDK tools.

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#199
post #34

As an Ex-OpenAI employee I agree with this. Most of the top ML talent at OpenAI already have left to either do their own thing or join other startups. A few are still there but I doubt if they'll be around in a year. The main successful product from OpenAI is the ChatGPT app, but there's a limit on how much you can charge people for subscription fees. I think soon people expect this service to be provided for free an…

> (And don't let me get started with Sam Altman.) Please do.

It's a rabbit hole with many layers (levels?), but this is a good starting point and gateway to related information:

Key Facts from "The Secrets and Misdirection Behind Sam Altman's Firing from OpenAI": https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/25EgRNWcY6PM3fWZh/openai-12-...

Re: Google is winning on every AI front

#200
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google offering Gemini 2.5 Pro for free, enough to ditch OpenAI, reminds me of an old tactic. Microsoft gained control in the '90s by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows for free, undercutting Netscape’s browser. This leveraged Windows’ dominance to make Explorer the default choice, sidelining competitors and capturing the browser market. By 1998, Netscape’s share plummeted, and Microsoft controlled access to the…

The joke's on them, because I don't have any loyalty to an LLM provider. There's very close to zero switching costs, both on the consumer front and the API front; no real distinguishing features and no network effects; just whoever has the best model at this point in time.

I'm assuming Google's play here is to bleed its competitors of money and raise prices when they're gone. Building top-tier models is extremely expensive and will probably remain so.

Even companies that do it "on the cheap," like DeepSeek, pay tens of millions to train a single model, and total expenditures for infrastructure and salaries are estimated to surpass $1 billion. This market has an extremely high cost of entry.

So, I guess Google is applying the usual strategy here: undercut competition until it implodes and buy up any promising competitors that arise in the future. Given the current lack of market regulation in the US, this might work.

Post reply on HN