Gemini
Google's multimodal AI model and assistant, competing with ChatGPT for conversational AI market share.
What is Gemini?
Gemini is the name of both Google's family of large language models and the consumer assistant built on them. The models are multimodal, meaning they handle text, images, audio, video and code, and they come in several sizes for different uses. The Gemini assistant is available on the web at gemini.google.com, in mobile apps, on Android as a replacement for Google Assistant, and inside Google Workspace applications such as Gmail, Docs and Sheets.
The Gemini assistant grounds many answers in Google Search. When a question needs current or factual information it runs searches, reads results and composes an answer, often with a "double-check" feature that highlights which statements are supported by which sources. Gemini models also power AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search, so the same underlying system produces answers across several surfaces, though each surface has its own retrieval and citation behaviour.
For site owners the important control is the Google-Extended robots.txt token. It governs whether content Googlebot has crawled may be used to train Gemini models and for grounding in some Gemini products. It does not affect whether a page appears in Search, AI Overviews or AI Mode, which follow the standard Googlebot rules. Blocking Google-Extended therefore limits training use without removing the site from Google's answer surfaces.
Why it matters for AI search
Gemini is the model behind every Google AI answer surface and the assistant built into Android and Workspace, so its impression of a brand reaches an enormous audience. Visibility depends on Google indexing, answer-first content and consistent brand facts, plus a deliberate decision about Google-Extended. Because the Gemini assistant, AI Overviews and AI Mode cite differently, each should be tracked as its own platform even though they share a model.
Related terms
Google AI Mode
Google's conversational AI interface within search, allowing users to have back-and-forth conversations about search topics.
AI Overviews (SGE)
Google's search feature that uses AI to synthesize a direct answer at the top of the search results page, citing various web sources.
LLM (Large Language Model)
A type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data to understand and generate human-like language (e.g., GPT-4, Claude 3).
Training Data
The text data used to train AI models. Being in training data affects how AI understands your brand.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini the same as Google AI Overviews?+
No. Gemini is the model family and the standalone assistant. AI Overviews and AI Mode are features inside Google Search that use Gemini models. They share technology but are separate products with separate citation behaviour.
What does Google-Extended control?+
Whether content crawled by Googlebot can be used to train Gemini models and for grounding in some Gemini products. It does not affect Search ranking, AI Overviews or AI Mode, which are governed by the normal Googlebot and snippet directives.