Nigeria, Feb. 12 -- In a report published on February 12, 2026, the company said the activity involved what it described as "distillation attacks", in other words, repeated and structured questioning designed to extract the model's reasoning patterns and internal logic.

Google said the goal of these campaigns was to replicate Gemini's capabilities in competing systems. They described the activity as intellectual property theft.

A Google spokesperson told NBC News that the attackers appear to be "commercially motivated" actors, including private companies and researchers seeking a competitive advantage. The spokesperson added that the activity originated from multiple countries but declined to name specific suspects.

John Hultquist, Ch...