Google’s Gemini has beaten Pokémon Blue (with a little help)

Google’s most expensive AI model seems to have crossed a major milestone: Beating a 29-year-old video game. Last night, Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted triumphantly on X, “What a finish! Gemini 2.5 Pro just completed Pokémon Blue!” To be clear, the Gemini Plays Pokemon livestream was created by (in his own words) “a 30 year old software engineer unaffiliated with Google” who goes by Joel Z. But Google executives have been cheering the effort on. For example, Logan Kilpatrick, the product lead fo