This year, Google announced its headlong thrust into the future of generative AI. At Google I/O, Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled a series of advancements powered by Google’s AI technology, Gemini.
The core theme was generative AI, with Google showcasing significant updates to its Gemini family of models and introducing new tools for creators. Here are the highlights of the upgrades:
- Faster and more capable Gemini models: Google unveiled the new 1.5 Flash model, which excels in several tasks like summarization, chat applications, and data extraction. The improved 1.5 Pro model has an enhanced capability to follow complex instructions and control response styles.
- Gemini Nano expands and Gemma gets an upgrade: Gemini Nano now supports image inputs starting with Pixel phones. Google also announced Gemma 2.0, the next-generation open-source model for responsible AI development, as well as PaliGemma, a vision-language model.
- High-Fidelity Video and Image Generation: Google is introducing Veo, a groundbreaking video generation model capable of producing high-quality, cinematic-style videos exceeding a minute in length. Google is also launching Imagen 3, which is the company’s most advanced text-to-image model to date.
- Music AI Sandbox: In collaboration with YouTube, Google introduced a suite of music AI tools designed to aid creators in generating original instrumental sections.
Google also announced plans to further integrate Gemini into its core products including:
- Enhanced Android UX: New features leverage on-device AI to enhance user experience, like getting step-by-step Math tutorials.
- Better Search Functionality: Search will soon utilize a custom-built Gemini model to answer new types of questions. Users can further explore the AI-organized results page with categorized content.
- Improved Google Photos organization: Ask Photos allows users to search their photo libraries based on specific locations or thematic details. Social Media users can also use Ask Photos to curate photo highlights and generate appropriate captions.
- Synergistic Google Workspace: Workspace will include access to the 1.5 Pro model within the side panel of Gmail, Docs, Drive, Slides, and Sheets. Thus, enabling the users to ask a wider range of questions and receive more insightful responses.
As the world embraces AI technology, Google’s AI Strategy marks a significant step to enable better experiences for its users across various settings.
Catch the replay of I/O 2024 here and read the highlights here.
