Google’s Gemini AI app will come to phones, making it easier for people to connect to a digital brain

Google presented on Thursday a free artificial intelligence application that will implement the technology on smartphones, allowing people to quickly connect to a digital brain capable of writing for them, interpreting what they read and see, in addition to help them manage their lives.

With the advent of the Gemini application, the name of an AI project unveiled at the end of last year, Google will abandon the Bard chatbot that it introduced a year ago in an attempt to catch up ChatGPT, the chatbot launched by Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI. late 2022. Google is immediately launching a standalone Gemini app for smartphones running on its Android software.

In a few weeks, Google will integrate Gemini features into its existing iPhone search app, where Apple would prefer people rely on its Siri voice assistant to handle various tasks.

Although Google’s voice assistant, which has been available for years, will remain available, company executives say they expect Gemini to become the primary way users apply technology to help them think , plan and create. This is Google’s next foray down a potentially perilous new path, while remaining focused on its founding goal “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

“We believe this is one of the most effective ways to advance our mission,” Sissie Hsiao, Google’s chief executive overseeing Gemini, told reporters before Thursday’s announcement.

The Gemini app will initially be released in the United States in English before expanding to the Asia Pacific region next week, with versions in Japanese and Korean.

In addition to the free version of Gemini, Google will sell an advanced service accessible through the new app for $20 per month. The Mountain View, Calif., company says it’s a form of AI so sophisticated that it will be able to mentor students, provide computer programming advice to engineers, imagine project ideas, then create content suggestions that a user prefers. .

The Gemini Advanced option, which will be powered by AI technology dubbed “Ultra 1.0”, will look to build on the nearly 100 million global subscribers Google says it has attracted so far, including Most pay between $2 and $10 per month for additional fees. storage to save photos, documents and other digital materials. The Gemini Advanced subscription will include 2 terabytes of storage that Google currently sells for $10 per month, meaning the company estimates the AI ​​technology is worth an additional $10 per month.

Google is offering a two-month free trial of Gemini Advanced to encourage people to try it.

The rollout of Gemini apps highlights the right time to bring more AI to smartphones – devices that go everywhere with people – part of a trend that Google started last fall with its latest Pixel smartphones and Samsung adopted last month with its latest Galaxy smartphones.

It also risks intensifying the high-stakes AI showdown between Google and Microsoft, two of the world’s most powerful companies racing to gain the upper hand with technology that could reshape work, entertainment and perhaps to be humanity itself. The battle has already contributed to a $2 trillion increase in the combined market value of Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet Inc. since the end of 2022.

In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Puchai predicted that the technology behind Gemini Advanced would be able to outperform even the smartest people when tackling many complex topics.

“Ultra 1.0 is the first to surpass human experts in (mass multitasking language understanding), which uses a combination of 57 subjects, including mathematics, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics , to test knowledge and problem-solving skills,” Pichai wrote.

But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was keen to tout the capabilities of the ChatGPT-4 chatbot on Wednesday, a product launched nearly a year ago after being trained by OpenAI on large language models, or LLMs.

“We have the best model even today,” Nadella said at an event in Mumbai, India. He then apparently anticipated the release of the next generation of Gemini, adding: “We’re waiting for the competition to come. It will come, I’m sure. But the fact is that we have the most market-leading LLM in the market.”

The introduction of increasingly sophisticated AI amplifies fears that the technology will malfunction and misbehave on its own, or that it will be manipulated by individuals for sinister purposes, such as spreading disinformation in politics or torment their enemies. This potential has already led to the adoption of rules intended to control the use of AI in Europe and spurred similar efforts in the United States and other countries.

Google says the next generation of Gemini products have undergone extensive testing to ensure their safety and have been designed to adhere to its AI principles, which include being socially beneficial, avoiding unfair bias and be responsible to people.

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