Google Gemini AI: What’s really new right here?

Customers and buyers are sick of AI hype, and Google is aware of it.

“There have been so many guarantees, so many ‘coming quickly’s, and never sufficient real-world helpfulness in the case of AI,” Google senior VP Rick Osterloh stated on the “Made by Google” occasion that unveiled new Pixel telephones in Mountain View Tuesday. “Which is why as we speak, we’re getting actual … we will reply the most important query individuals have about AI, what can AI do for me?”

OK, so did Google reside as much as that promise? If you strip the keynote of all of the bells and whistles — the celeb appearances, the jargon about “Tensor Processing Models,” the Pixel telephone tech specs, the visions of what Gemini would possibly be capable to do in the long term — what was new concerning the Android expertise right here? And does any of it qualify as vital killer app?

Here is a whole checklist of all the pieces the 90-minute occasion provided in precise functioning demonstrations. Actual-world helpfulness, in different phrases, versus adverts or guarantees.

1. Gemini can test your Google calendar to see for those who’re free for a future live performance, based mostly on a poster.

Thanks, Gemini!
Credit score: Google

Poor Dave Citron. Within the keynote’s most awkward second, this Google product lead needed to invoke “the demo spirits” and swap telephones earlier than Gemini would really show a solution to “test my calendar and see if I am free when she’s coming to San Francisco this 12 months” (“she” being the artist Sabrina Carpenter; Citron had simply despatched Gemini a photograph of her live performance poster).

“Sabrina Carpenter is coming to San Francisco on November 9, 2024,” Gemini ultimately responded. “I do not see any occasions in your calendar throughout that point.”

AI studying the textual content in a picture and understanding the context is not new. The calendar add is, and that is to Google’s benefit. In principle, Apple Intelligence will do the identical factor when it debuts.

Citron’s subsequent demos confirmed how Gemini may draft a letter to a landlord a few damaged AC unit, or a professor a few class — well-trod floor for all AI assistants.

2. Gemini Reside gives ‘free-flowing dialog’

Subsequent up, Google VP Jenny Blackburn confirmed off the Gemini Reside voice assistant. That they had a chat about science experiments her niece and nephew would possibly like, and after some back-and-forth, settled on making invisible ink. The dialogue had a conversational stream.

All effectively and good, besides that OpenAI demonstrated its GPT-4o voice assistant, with equally interruptible conversations, again in Could. That function is presently reside for a small group of ChatGPT Plus customers, however not all. So Google acquired there first, we guess?

3. Gemini Nano gives on-device summaries of your telephone calls

Here is a function which may be much less creepy than it sounds: Name Notes, which “follows up in your telephone calls with a totally non-public abstract of the dialog.” However don’t be concerned, as a result of it is utilizing Gemini Nano, an AI service that’s based mostly completely on the Pixel 9 telephone with out requiring cloud entry. (The on-device half will not be new; Samsung does the identical with Galaxy AI.)

4. Screenshots are searchable.

Rating yet one more success for Gemini Nano on what we’re calling essentially the most helpful AI function of 2024.

However after that, we acquired a variety of visible stuff we have seen AI assistants do a dozen occasions earlier than. To wit: creating a celebration invite in Pixel Studios, auto-framing in Magic Editor, including generative AI photographs to your picture, inserting your self right into a household picture or an image with a star (the brand new and embarrassingly named “Add Me” function). Plus stuff that was cute however not AI in any respect (the “Made You Look” function that may level your kid’s consideration on the Pixel’s rear-facing display screen).

So, will this function set be sufficient to reverse the skepticism that has set in across the AI bubble? Do not depend on Gemini to reply that one any time quickly.