AI Pulse for week ending 12/12: What pulse? None outside of Google

This illustration represents the heartbeat of AI, and Google’s Gemini is the only LLM with a positive pulse. See below for the actual data.

By Alan Jacobson, Systems Architect & Analyst

Every major AI platform is flat or declining this week — except one.

And the exception tells us more about Google’s distribution muscle than it does about the health of the AI ecosystem.

We track standalone traffic at gemini.google.com – not YouTube. not Chrome. not Android. not Workspace injection.

And the truth is simple:

Gemini is ascending because Google finally began routing meaningful search intent into Gemini — something they could not have done six months ago.

Why did they wait?

Because six months ago the product wasn’t stable enough to survive real traffic.
The brand was still radioactive from the Gemini image fiasco.
Safety teams were firefighting.
The politics across Search, Ads, Chrome and Workspace weren’t aligned.

And Google knew one thing:

You do not point billions of searches at an unstable model without detonating your trust capital.

So they waited.

Only in the last 45–60 days did Google have the combination required to turn the wheel:

Model stability
Safety clearance
Internal political alignment across fiefdoms
A PR window
Room created by OpenAI’s public stumbles
A willingness to absorb antitrust scrutiny

And once those pieces were in place, Google did what only Google can do:

They opened a side door in Search.

Not a floodgate — a side door.

Quiet, controlled, deniable.

Even a fraction of global search traffic — a tenth of a percent — is enough to move gemini.google.com in a way that looks, from the outside, like explosive growth.

And to be clear:
It is growth.
But it is not organic adoption.
It is controlled redirection.

It is gravity — Google’s gravity — not AI momentum.

Every other platform this week is flat.
Usage flat.
Engagement flat.
Growth flat.
Public excitement flat.
Enterprise adoption flat.

The only thing moving is the platform backed by the world’s largest distribution channel turning a dial that did not exist six months ago.

So yes — Gemini is rising.
But the pulse of the broader AI ecosystem?

Still flat. See for yourself: