Web Scraping with Gemini 3 Pro?
our initial thoughts on the latest model from Google
Hey everyone, John here, head of devrel @ Zyte
Google dropped Gemini 3.0 Pro this week! We were quick to jump on to see how it performed for us, both internally, but also for users of our Web Scraping Copilot extension. Up to this point we had been recommending at least GTP-5 mini but I’d become a firm Gemini 2.5 Pro enjoyer so was pleased to see that 3 Pro was even better in our testing. I’ve been using it ever since and have been very impressed. Feels very much like Google are winning here now.
We’ve been working on some great content too, summarising our favourites from Extract Dublin and have plenty of cool stuff in the pipeline to share with you for the rest of the year.
Gemini 3 Pro
So far, VERY good.
Our Head of R&D Konstantin Lopukhin summarised his thoughts for us in this post - “It achieved the highest quality scores, improving on the already strong performance of Gemini 2.5 Pro and edging out leading models like GPT-5 and Claude.”
Whilst it is still in preview, we are recommend trying it with our VS Code Extension, as I shared here:
Dead Internet Theory?
Bots talking to Bots.
Dead Internet Theory is the hypothesis that the majority of internet traffic, content, and interactions are no longer generated by humans, but rather by bots and artificial intelligence. Originally dismissed as a fringe conspiracy, the theory argues that this “synthetic” activity—ranging from automated social media comments to AI-generated articles—is now drowning out organic human discourse, largely to manipulate engagement metrics and public perception.
This has given rise to bizarre viral trends like “Shrimp Jesus,” a series of nonsensical AI-generated images pairing religious figures with marine life.
“When the idea first started circulating around 2018, it felt like a paranoid exaggeration. But the rapid rise of generative AI has shifted this conversation from a fringe idea to an observable reality — with profound consequences.”
Beyond the block: The front line of data access
A deep dive into the evolving battle for web data access—featuring insights from Castle, Scrapoxy, and Zyte at Extract Summit 2025. Learn how AI, anti-bots, economics, and authentication standards like Web Bot Auth are transforming scraping, security, and the future of the open internet.
We were lucky enough to have representatives from both sides of the industry, who shared their knowledge with us.
“Big platforms are asking questions. They don’t really know what to do with AI agents.”
– Antoine Vastel, head of research, Castle
“The goal of the anti-bot is to raise the bar every time... to make you access the data in a more expensive way.”
– Fabien Vauchelles, creator, Scrapoxy
Do I need an Unblocker API?
If you are a web scraper who has ever had to search for “How to handle bot detection?,” you may have seen hundreds of “instant unblocker” tools promising sky-high success rates and unlimited bandwidth for pennies per request.
On paper, they sound great: plug in an API endpoint, send your URL, and get data back.
They often charge per GB rather than by success
Have static fingerprints (mean less unblocking)
Hidden maintenance costs
“When a ‘$50 unblocker’ leaves your spiders failing 30% of the time, your effective cost per successful page triples... Every ban you chase costs uptime and erodes predictability—the one thing that enterprise data operations rely on.”
Projects to Try
The thing we love the most is building. I want to share a few of the teams recent projects that we think you should try. Code and write ups on our dev.to page.
Build Your Own Holiday Deal Tracker with Python, Zyte API & IFTTT
A great beginner friendly project that tracks prices for your favourite items over Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, with notifications by Ayan Pahwa
n8n Web Scraping || Part 2: Pagination, Infinite Scroll, Network Capture & More
Web Scraping Automation with N8n, for those who love N8n this is a fantasic way to implement web data into your automation pipeline, by Lakshay Nasa
From the Community
Started with weekly live session on Extract YT channel, every Wednesday at 3:00 PM UTC- https://www.youtube.com/@ExtractSummit/live
Watch the past streams - https://www.youtube.com/@ExtractSummit/streams
That’s a wrap for this week! John.