I’ve said before that, when it comes to using generative AIs as search engines, most of them aren’t up to the task. Mostly because of their tendency to hallucinate (make s—t up). Most of the big names you’ve heard of, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini, function more as chatty chatbots than true search engine replacements.
Perplexity AI is the one that stands out as different, even though it’s underpinned by many of these same AI engines. But not even it has the speed that Google is now claiming Gemini Flash, the latest release of its Gemini AI, has up its sleeve.
sticking AI right into search
“Gemini 3 Flash brings the incredible reasoning capabilities of Gemini 3 to Search, without compromising speed, so you can tackle your most complicated questions.” Or so said Google in a December 17, 2025 blog post announcing the immediate release of Gemini 3 Flash.
“Gemini 3 Flash’s strength lies in its raw speed, building on the Flash series that developers and consumers already love,” Google continues. “It outperforms 2.5 Pro while being 3x faster (based on Artificial Analysis benchmarking).”
Not only does Google say it’s faster than the previous Gemini Flash, but it’s also faster than Gemini 3 Pro. That makes sense, though, as the trade-off for Pro is that it’ll perform more thorough and complex tasks as long as you’re patient enough for the longer wait.
Many queries to AIs don’t need so much horsepower, though. Think of asking, “Where can I find a bar in the neighborhood tonight with a happy hour special on food?” or “What’s the proper tire pressure for a 2011 Subaru WRX?” Those are lightweight questions, so you may as well get quicker answers through Flash.
With Google leaning heavily into its efforts to level up Gemini and better compete against the AI frontrunner OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman taking such note at Google’s rapid progress as to (dramatically) declare in a companywide memo a “Code Red” about it, it looks like the half-asleep Google giant has been fully awakened.
The post Google Says Gemini 3 Flash AI Is as Fast as Traditional Search appeared first on VICE.
