AI assistants rely on sometimes opaque algorithmic logic to function. Some of the latest models, notably the ChatGPT 's o3-mini model and the brand-new Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, lean into that reasoning element.

This thinking capability was first introduced by Google in its Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental AI model, which was released in December. To create the model, the company explored AI-building practices including reinforcement learning and chain-of-thought prompting.