Gemini Becomes Google’s Fastest-Growing Product, Reaching 1 Billion Monthly Active Users

That changes the picture a lot.

So instead of looking at one daily high, the researchers zoomed in much more closely?

Exactly. They compared each hour with the same hour in the past.

So 8 a.m. was compared with other 8 a.m. temperatures.

They did that for every hour of the day.

And how did they decide when an hour counted as extreme heat?

They called an hour “extreme heat” if it was above the 90th percentile for that time of day.

They used records from 1981 to 2010.

That sounds much more precise, but also much more worrying.

It is.

The average person already faces about 270 hours of these hourly heat extremes each summer.

And that number has been rising by 62 hours every decade.

Sixty-two hours a decade is a big climb.

Did the study say what happens if warming keeps going?

Yes. The researchers used climate model results for two future paths.

In the medium-emissions path, with around 3 degrees of warming by 2100, the total number of hourly heat extremes triples.

That happens by the end of the century.

In the high-emissions path, with 5 degrees of warming, it rises by 4.5 times.

So this is not just a small change at the edges.

It is a much hotter daily life.

That is the key point.

A half-degree rise in global temperature adds about 200 hot hours per summer in the study’s results.

A small change on a chart can mean many more dangerous hours outside.

And by using the hourly view, the researchers are showing a part of climate change.

People can really feel it in daily life.

Yes.

One long heatwave is serious.

But many extra hot hours spread across a summer can also wear people down.

That matters for health, work, and sleep.

Gemini hits one billion monthly users

Now we go to Liam, our LinguaWire correspondent for technology.

Google says Gemini has reached 1 billion monthly active users.

That is a major milestone.

One billion is a huge number.

But I think there is an important detail here about what that number means.

There is.

Google is counting people who open the Gemini app or use the Gemini website in a month.

It is not counting every person who sees Gemini inside Gmail, Drive, Search, or other Google products.

So the app number is one thing, and the wider Google system is another.

Exactly.

Google says Gemini reached that 1 billion mark faster than any other Google product.

That matters because Google has had 13 other products reach the same level.

Gemini got there more quickly.

That tells us the rollout has been very fast.

What else did the company share about how people use it?

Google’s vice president, Josh Woodward, said 63 percent of active users use voice input.

He also said more people are becoming voice-only users.

That means they speak to the chatbot instead of typing.

So the phone is becoming something more like a talking tool than a typing tool.

That is part of the shift.

Woodward also said that among Gemini Live users, 20 percent share camera feeds and screens to get help.

That is a very hands-on kind of use.

And I saw there was also a school angle in the numbers.

Yes. Woodward said 38 percent of school-related requests include an attachment.

So Google is working on new study tools.

He said those tools should come in the coming weeks.

And there is still the bigger question behind all this.

Can the growth continue if the product changes more slowly?

That is the concern.

The announcement is strong.

But the article also points to slower model releases.

So the big user number does not remove pressure on Google.

It shows how quickly AI has moved from a new idea to an everyday product.

But it also shows how hard it is to keep users interested over time.

First, three words from the heat story.

Extreme heat: this means weather that is much hotter than normal. In the story, the researchers used the phrase “extreme heat” to describe dangerous hot conditions. Example: Extreme heat can make city streets feel almost empty in the afternoon.

Trend: this means a general direction of change over time. In the story, the trend was that hot hours were rising every decade. Example: There is a clear trend toward earlier summer holidays.

Percentile: this is a way to compare a number with other numbers in a group. In the story, the 90th percentile helped define what counted as extreme heat. Example: Her test score was in the 90th percentile for the class.

Now the grammar point: be used to + verb-ing.

We use this structure to talk about something that is normal or familiar to someone.

Example one: We are used to hot summers now.

Example two: People are used to using voice input on their phones.

Repeat after me: are used to using voice input.