In late November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT. It has been three years since then, and just as it was about to celebrate its third birthday, an event occurred that dampened the celebratory mood. CEO Sam Altman declared a "CODE RED" (Emergency) (1). The driving force behind this was the breakthrough of the new generative AI, "Gemini 3" (2), released by Google on November 18. Today, I would like to delve into this theme and forecast the generative AI market for 2026. Let’s get started.

1. Gemini 3 vs. GPT-5

On August 6, 2025, OpenAI released GPT-5. Since it was the first major update since GPT-4, people had very high expectations. However, in reality, it was difficult to perceive a significant difference compared to other models. Although it managed to update scores across various benchmarks, the impression was that its impact felt somewhat muted compared to the arrival of GPT-4.

Of course, it is evolving steadily, so if rival companies' models had remained stagnant, I believe it could have celebrated its third birthday peacefully. However, the moves made by its rival, Google, surpassed our expectations. On November 18, 2025, Gemini 3 was released, and everyone was astonished by its high performance. Its scores in almost all benchmarks surpassed those of GPT-5, and for the first time since the birth of ChatGPT, GPT-5 lost its "technological competitive advantage." The battle surrounding generative AI has entered a new phase.

2. Why Gemini 3 is Particularly Superior

There are several technical talking points, but what I am paying special attention to is its high capability in image processing and generation. As shown in the leaderboard (3) below, its strength is overwhelming and unrivaled. The famous image generation app Nano Banana Pro is officially named Gemini 3-Pro-Image, and its high scores truly stand out.

When considering individual customers, the ability to easily generate and edit images exactly as envisioned is crucial and can serve as a "killer app." I feel that once individuals experience the technical level of Gemini 3, they will find it difficult to easily switch back to competitor apps. The image below was generated using Nano Banana Pro. As you can see, it has become easy to render both English and Japanese text together on an image. Previously, Japanese text was often incomplete or incomprehensible, so it was quite moving to see clean Japanese generated for the first time.

3. The Generative AI Market in 2026

With Sam Altman issuing a CODE RED, I believe OpenAI will allocate significant development resources to improving the model itself and will frantically work to close this gap in the image generation field. On the other hand, Google, armed with Gemini 3, possesses several multimodal generative AI models beyond just Nano Banana Pro, and I expect them to leverage that expertise to aim for further breakthroughs.

In particular, generative AI capable of simulation using 3D structures—known as World Models—will likely influence Large Language Models (LLMs) as well, solidifying Google's competitive advantage. One has to admit that Google, which owns YouTube, is incredibly strong in this field. It looks like 2026 will be a year where we cannot take our eyes off how OpenAI launches its counterattack.

How was it? While there are several other players creating generative AI, I believe the industry style will involve companies defining their own positions within the context of the "OpenAI vs. Google" battle. Therefore, the outcome of OpenAI vs. Google is extremely important for all AI-related companies. I would like to write another blog post on this same theme if the opportunity arises.

That’s all for today. Stay tuned!

You can enjoy our video news ToshiStats-AI from this link, too!

1) Sam Altman’s ‘Code Red’ Memo Urges ChatGPT Improvements Amid Growing Google Threat, Reports Say, Forbes, 2 Dec 2025
2) A new era of intelligence with Gemini 3, Google, 18 Nov 2025
3) Leaderboard Overview,

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Just fresh off the heels of last week's new model release, Google has debuted yet another new image generation model: Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image). Rumors on the street say it boasts incredible performance. So, let's dive in and test it out to see its potential capabilities.

1. The Latest Tokyo Fashion Trends

Fashion evolves with every season, and keeping up with the trends can be a challenge. However, the internet is overflowing with the latest style information. I figured that by feeding this real-time data into generative AI, we could generate images of models wearing the styles currently in vogue. Let's give it a try. Below is the original image of the model. She is wearing an outfit typical of Japanese autumn.

I fed this original image and the prompt "Perform Google Search for current Tokyo fashion trends for 20s lady and apply that style to the model in the attached photo. 4 images are needed." into Nano Banana Pro.

The same model appears in all four images, maintaining consistency. Furthermore, the latest fashion trends have been incorporated thanks to Google Search. This is wonderful. Nano Banana Pro's Grounding feature using Google Search is excellent. As the model updates in the future, we can expect the accuracy of capturing trendy fashion to improve even further.

2. Creating a Signature Cafe Menu

Next, I want to devise a set menu featuring shortcake and coffee for opening a cafe in Ashiya, a high-end residential area in Japan. For this one too, I prepared a prompt to generate the image after researching currently popular cakes using Google Search.

"I am opening a cafe in Ashiya, Japan, featuring a fruit shortcake and coffee set as the signature dish. Use Google Search to identify current cake trends in Ashiya City. Then, create a high-quality menu image for this set that includes a description and price in English, incorporating the local trends."

I generated the following Japanese and English versions of the menu.

Both the Japanese and English text are perfect. I think this is a huge leap forward, especially since AI image generation has struggled to correctly render local languages like Japanese until now. I’m sure it will work well with other local languages too. It looks like Nano Banana Pro will be able to perform globally, regardless of language.

3. 3D Visualization of Loss Functions

Raising the abstraction level a bit, I want to execute a 3D visualization of a loss function—a topic often discussed when building targeting models for marketing—and clearly explain the concept of the gradient descent method. Nano Banana Pro can understand even theoretical and highly abstract phenomena like loss functions and map them in 3D. Below is the result. You can see at a glance how the parameters get stuck in a local minimum and cannot reach the point where the loss function is at its global minimum. Amazing.

How was it? Even from these few experiments, the excellence of Nano Banana Pro is clear. I have a hunch that Nano Banana Pro is going to change the very methods of digital marketing. I felt particularly strong potential in the Grounding feature using Google Search. I plan to cover Nano Banana Pro again in the near future.