diff --git a/operate/config.py b/operate/config.py
index b97b20ac..8337f696 100644
--- a/operate/config.py
+++ b/operate/config.py
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ def initialize_google(self):
                 )
             api_key = os.getenv("GOOGLE_API_KEY")
         genai.configure(api_key=api_key, transport="rest")
-        model = genai.GenerativeModel("gemini-pro-vision")
+        model = genai.GenerativeModel("gemini-exp-1206")
 
         return model
 
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ def validation(self, model, voice_mode):
             or model == "o1-with-ocr",
         )
         self.require_api_key(
-            "GOOGLE_API_KEY", "Google API key", model == "gemini-pro-vision"
+            "GOOGLE_API_KEY", "Google API key", model == "gemini-exp-1206"
         )
         self.require_api_key(
             "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY", "Anthropic API key", model == "claude-3"
diff --git a/operate/models/apis.py b/operate/models/apis.py
index d0ccb0c4..51bce99f 100644
--- a/operate/models/apis.py
+++ b/operate/models/apis.py
@@ -162,17 +162,29 @@ def call_gemini_pro_vision(messages, objective):
         if config.verbose:
             print("[call_gemini_pro_vision] model", model)
 
-        response = model.generate_content([prompt, Image.open(screenshot_filename)])
+        response = model.generate_content(
+            [prompt, Image.open(screenshot_filename)])
 
         content = response.text[1:]
         if config.verbose:
             print("[call_gemini_pro_vision] response", response)
-            print("[call_gemini_pro_vision] content", content)
+            print("[call_gemini_pro_vision] raw content before parsing:", content)
+
+        content = content.strip("`").strip()
+        if not content:
+            raise ValueError(
+                "[call_gemini_pro_vision] Empty content received.")
+
+        try:
+            content = json.loads(content)
+        except json.JSONDecodeError as e:
+            print(f"[ERROR] JSONDecodeError: {e}")
+            print(f"[DEBUG] Problematic content: {content}")
+            raise
 
-        content = json.loads(content)
         if config.verbose:
             print(
-                "[get_next_action][call_gemini_pro_vision] content",
+                "[get_next_action][call_gemini_pro_vision] parsed content",
                 content,
             )
 
@@ -180,7 +192,8 @@ def call_gemini_pro_vision(messages, objective):
 
     except Exception as e:
         print(
-            f"{ANSI_GREEN}[Self-Operating Computer]{ANSI_BRIGHT_MAGENTA}[Operate] That did not work. Trying another method {ANSI_RESET}"
+            f"{ANSI_GREEN}[Self-Operating Computer]{
+                ANSI_BRIGHT_MAGENTA}[Operate] That did not work. Trying another method {ANSI_RESET}"
         )
         if config.verbose:
             print("[Self-Operating Computer][Operate] error", e)
@@ -188,6 +201,7 @@ def call_gemini_pro_vision(messages, objective):
         return call_gpt_4o(messages)
 
 
+
 async def call_gpt_4o_with_ocr(messages, objective, model):
     if config.verbose:
         print("[call_gpt_4o_with_ocr]")