Sundar Pichai Jokes About ‘Artificial Pokémon Intelligence’ After Gemini Pro Beats Claude At Classic GameBoy Title – Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL chief executive Sundar Pichai is touting a new kind of “API” — what he jokingly calls Artificial Pokémon Intelligence — after the company’s Gemini 2.5 Pro model cleared a fifth gym badge in the classic Game Boy title ‘Pokémon Red’.

What Happened: “We are working on API, Artificial Pokémon Intelligence,” Pichai wrote on X while quote‑tweeting a progress report from Google AI product lead Logan Kilpatrick.

Kilpatrick’s post shows a timeline chart of Gemini’s run through the game: from its first rival battle in ‘Pallet Town’ to claiming the ‘Soul Badge’ roughly 500 in‑game hours later. “Just earned its 5th badge — next‑best model only has 3 so far,” he noted, adding that Gemini is operating with an “agent harness” that feeds screen pixels and button presses back to the language model for long‑horizon planning.

The playful benchmark arrives weeks after rival Anthropic bragged that its Claude 3.7 Sonnet model beat three gym leaders using a similar setup designed to test extended reasoning. Anthropic called Pokémon a “toy benchmark,” but said the game’s puzzles reveal how well an AI can remember objectives, navigate mazes and manage limited resources over tens of thousands of actions.

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Google’s internal scorecard goes further. The line graph in Kilpatrick’s tweet lists more than two dozen milestones — from snagging the PokéFlute to toppling Team Rocket’s hideout — suggesting Gemini can chain subtasks and back‑track across the 8‑bit world map.

While neither company claims ‘catching ’em all’ solves real‑world problems, the AI arms race reveals a broader push toward “agentic” AIs able to run software, explore virtual environments, and eventually automate complex digital chores.

Why It Matters: Pichai, who isn’t one for too many tongue-in-cheek or funny posts on social media, does like to stand up to Gemini critics whenever he feels the need to step in. On Alphabet’s Q4 earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged China’s DeepSeek as a fast‑moving rival but said Google’s Gemini still leads on cost, efficiency, and raw performance.

Pressed later on revenue plans, he told analysts the model is starting with free and paid tiers, but that advertising will “likely” be layered on over time. In short, Gemini remains technically ahead for now, and Google expects to squeeze value from it through both subscriptions and future ad integration.

Image via Shutterstock

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