Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 2.5 Pro, has reportedly reached a significant achievement by completing a 29-year-old video game, Pokémon Blue.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on social media platform X, celebrating the accomplishment as Gemini 2.5 Pro finished the game.
The “Gemini Plays Pokémon” livestream was initiated by a 30-year-old software engineer, Joel Z, who is not affiliated with Google. Despite this, Google executives have expressed their support for the endeavor.
Logan Kilpatrick, Google AI Studio’s product lead, previously posted about Gemini’s progress in the game, noting its achievements, including earning its fifth badge. This progress led Pichai to humorously comment on their “Artificial Pokémon Intelligence.”
The choice of Pokémon as a benchmark follows previous developments highlighted by Anthropic, which noted the progress of its Claude AI models in playing Pokémon Red, suggesting AI can handle unexpected tasks.
Although Claude AI has not yet completed Pokémon Red, comparisons between the two models are cautioned against. On his Twitch page, Joel Z emphasized that direct comparisons are challenging due to the different tools and information available to each model.
Both AI models utilize agent harnesses to aid gameplay, which provide game screenshots with additional information and enable the models to make decisions and perform corresponding actions.
Joel Z acknowledged additional developer interventions to assist Gemini, asserting that these adjustments enhance decision-making without providing explicit game-solving hints. He noted that Gemini Plays Pokémon continues to evolve and develop further.
