Welcome back to the Deep Dive. For years, the
big leaps in AI, they always seem to happen on
a certain rhythm. We even had a name for it,
right? Thursday AI. Well, you can go ahead and
scratch that off the calendar. Google just completely
reset the clock with Tuesday AI. Their Gemini
3 launch was massive. And the metrics they dropped,
I mean, they just changed the entire scoreboard.
This thing scored a 1501 ELO on El Marina. And
maybe more importantly, it crushed GPT -5 Pro
on the humanities last exam. We're talking 37
.4 % to 31 .6%. That is a huge margin, over six
points. This tells me it's not just a smarter
chatbot. The real signal here is that we're looking
at an entirely new class of AI teammate, something
that takes action. And that's exactly where we're
focusing today. So for everyone joining us on
this deep dive, our whole mission is to cut through
all the noise, all the data, and just pull out
the most important signals from this whirlwind
of AI updates. We do have a packed roadmap. We're
going to unpack the raw power of Gemini 3, this
new agent model, and really look at what those
big benchmark scores mean for how you can actually
use it. Then we're going to pivot to its unexpected
competitor, Grok 4 .1, the whole Vive first model
that tried to steal the spotlight. And we'll
finish up with the really practical stuff, the
new agents coming from industry and the just
colossal funding that proves this shift is here
to stay. Right. The focus is understanding that
shift from a simple chatbot to a true multi -step
agent that can plan and build things. Okay. Let's
get into it. We have to start with Gemini 3.
I mean, the performance numbers alone basically
set a new state of the art. It didn't just win.
It sort of redefined the whole arena. That's
completely right. And when we say 1501 ELO on
El Marina, for you listening, if you don't follow
the leaderboards, El Marina is where these top
models go head to head on really complex real
world stuff. That score, it's the new high watermark
for general AI intelligence. But the win on humanity's
last exam. That feels more consequential to me.
That's not a trivia contest. It's a test designed
to measure really deep cross -disciplinary reasoning.
Winning there signals a huge leap in cognitive
ability. And it's built on tech that's pushing
way beyond what we have now. They even mentioned
a separate model, the DeepThink version, hitting
45 .1 % on ARC -AGI2. And that test, that measures
fluid intelligence, you know, abstract reasoning.
That's the score that got everyone's attention.
I mean, you had Elon Musk and Sam Altman. both
publicly congratulating them on the launch. Oh,
yeah. When your biggest competitors stop to acknowledge
the jump you just made, you know it's a big deal.
It absolutely is. But the real story here, it
isn't just the score, it's the role. We have
to talk about this agent upgrade. An agent is
an AI that stops just answering your questions
and becomes like a planning teammate. Yeah, it's
about owning the outcome, not just finding the
information. An agent can handle multi -step
tasks. It plans out its actions on its own. And
it can simulate the results of those actions
before it even does them. It's like it's stacking
Lego blocks of action and data, not just handing
you one block. And that all starts with what
you give it. The input. Gemini 3 is natively
multimodal. And this isn't just a theory. You
can give it anything. A complex PDF, a photo,
a technical diagram, even a rough scribble on
a napkin. It uses all of it as context for its
plan. The examples the Google CEO gave were just
stunning. Imagine sketching a website idea on
a napkin, you hand it to the AI, and it turns
that scribble into a full working website with
all the code. That's utility in seconds. Or think
about education. You take a complicated physics
diagram and it turns it into an interactive lesson
where you can actually move things around, run
simulations in real time. And it scales up, too,
for big business tasks like it can analyze a
long video of a golf swing, find a technical
flaw and then suggest the exact drills you need
to do to fix it. And the output isn't just text
anymore. It can generate dynamic layouts with
interactive tools built right in, you know, like
actual data sliders that appear in your search
results. Right. That's a perfect example of it
moving from just giving you text to actively
building tools for you. And we should circle
back to DeepThink for a second. that version
is built for the really heavy lifting for multi
-hop logic what that means is the model can link
distant non -obvious bits of information together
from totally different data sets that's a sign
of real abstract reasoning not just better memory
it's still in safety testing before it hits the
ultra tier which kind of tells you how powerful
it is so if this model can build interactive
uis and simulate outcomes and plan things out
What does that actually mean for the future of
professional workflows, for creative work, technical
work, all of it? It means AI is moving from being
a passive source of information to actively building
your tools and running complex operations. Now,
shifting gears a bit, we have to talk about the
surprise competitor that dropped right before
Gemini 3 sucked all the air out of the room.
I'm talking about Grok 4 .1 from XAI. That was
such a brilliant counter move. They presented
it as vibe first, you know, focused on a specific
tone fast, witty, a little edgy, but then it
also delivered some really impressive intelligence
scores. It's that classic EQ versus IQ battle.
Precisely. And Grok 4 .1 gives you two modes
to work with. You've got the standard version,
which is super snappy, instant replies. And then
there's Grok 4 .1 thinking, which it takes its
time to process, but it's aiming for a deeper,
more analytical answer. And that thinking version
actually, for a moment, had its day in the sun.
It hit number one on the El Reno leaderboard,
scored 1510 ELO, just for a few hours before
Gemini came along and bumped it to number two.
But it proves this isn't just a personality.
It's a serious contender. Oh, it's very capable,
especially in creative writing. It's incredibly
strong. Only the next gen GPT model scored higher.
But for me, the most important signal wasn't
the score. It was the massive improvement in
just. basic reliability. They really needed to
fix their accuracy problem, didn't they? They
absolutely did. So they slashed the hallucination
rate from 12 % all the way down to 4 .2%. And
their internal test showed factual accuracy went
up by 66%. And look, I'll be honest, I still
wrestle with prompt drift myself when I'm trying
to build these complex, multi -layered queries.
So a reliability jump like that, it's huge for
user trust. Yeah. And that subjective quality
matters, too. People describe the tone as friendlier,
more empathetic, like the model just gets you
a little bit better. That vibe is so important
for getting people to actually use it. But here's
the huge catch, the big limiting factor. Grok
4 .1 is completely platform locked. You can only
use it on X, the social platform. or the Grok
website and app. You can't plug it into external
tools. You can't build it into your company's
workflow with an API. It is worth mentioning,
though, that XAI did release a white paper with
some of their training info. That's pretty rare
for them, so it shows they're serious about backing
up these performance claims. So why is that platform
restriction such a serious limiting factor right
now, especially when you compare it to Gemini
3, which is obviously being built for maximum
utility everywhere? The tradeoff is control.
Grok's usefulness is limited because it can't
integrate into existing business tools or external
APIs. Okay, as we move into the wider industry
context, I think it's really important that we
just pause here and reinforce a point that always
gets lost in the hype. That warning from the
Google CEO. It really does need to be repeated.
With all this excitement about these powerful
new agents, we have to remember they are still,
quote, prone to errors. You can't just blindly
trust the output. Critical thinking is still
step zero. That being said, the scale of the
infrastructure being built to support these agents
is it's just staggering. Just look at the funding.
Lambda, an AI cloud company, just raised over
one and a half billion dollars with Microsoft
heavily involved. And it's specifically to expand
the infrastructure needed for this stuff. A billion
and a half dollars. That signals a complete arms
race for computing power. These models need a
ton of silicon, a ton of energy to serve up these
complex multi -step agent requests at a global
scale. Exactly. I mean, when you think about
the multi -hop reasoning, the simulations these
agents are running, the demand for computation
is just exponential compared to a simple text
query. Whoa. Yeah, imagine scaling that. Agents
simulating outcomes and building UIs for... a
billion queries a day. $1 .5 billion is what
it takes just to get ready for that future. That's
a real moment of wonder. Thinking about that
scale. And that infrastructure is already being
put to work. Microsoft just confirmed this industry
-wide pivot to agents at their Ignite 2025 event.
They announced Agent 365 and 12 new co -pilot
agents, all designed for specific professional
jobs like marketing or customer service. The
agent race is officially on. We also got that
funny little reminder of the ethical gray areas
that open up when these models get so good at
manipulation. Right. The story about the DoorDash
customer who got a ref... fund by using AI to
fake a photo of a raw burger. Right. It's a small
thing, but it points to the immediate potential
for just, you know, everyday misuse and fraud.
And looking ahead, this competition is only going
to get more intense. OpenAI is definitely not
sitting still. Their VP of research mentioned
they have a stronger version of their IMO winning
model coming in 2025. And that's their math champion
model. So they're pushing pure mathematical reasoning
just as hard. So given all of this, the new power,
the acknowledged risks, what's the single most
important rule for the average user right now
to be both effective and safe. Critical thinking
remains essential. Always use AI results as a
starting point, not the final unquestioned fact.
So to wrap up this deep dive, I think the core
takeaway for you, for the listener, is this.
The whole AI race has fundamentally shifted.
We are not arguing anymore about who can write
slightly better text. Right. The new battleground
is complex, multimodal. action planning. We're
seeing the rise of true agents, not just smarter
chatbots. They can take in all kinds of data
and then actively build things for you. And the
competition is now on two clear paths. On one
side, you have pure, raw performance and deep
reasoning, which is Gemini 3. On the other, you
have specialized tone, speed, and empathy, which
is what Grok 4 .1 is going for. And both are
fighting for your attention. Thank you for joining
us on this deep dive into the new era of autonomous
AI agents. The changes are happening so fast
and the capabilities are becoming so much more
powerful, which makes these conversations just
absolutely necessary. And as you think about
the complexity of these new systems, here's a
final thought for you to explore. Considering
that safety tests are what's slowing down the
release of the most powerful versions, how soon
do you think the high reasoning Gemini 3 DeepThink
model will actually clear safety? And what new
really complex ethical questions will its multi
-hop logic raise when it finally gets out there?
Something to think about.