Google is entering its AI agents era with the introduction of Gemini 2.0 -- the company's next generation AI chatbot -- and a limited release of Project Astra, a computer vision-assisted AI agent that can see and analyze the world around you, the company said in a press release on Wednesday.
Project Astra, which was shown off at Google I/O earlier this year, is a major leap in Google's AI research from its DeepMind team in London. Like the video from earlier this year demonstrated, Project Astra, which can work through your phone's camera or through camera-equipped glasses, can see and analyze the world around you and give answers to anything it recognizes. This includes being able to ask your glasses where a bus is headed, what the code is to your apartment complex is or where you left your book.
Google says its latest advancements with Astra include better dialogue and conversibility in multiple languages, deeper integration with Google Lens and Maps, up to 10 minutes of memory, and better latency for faster responses.
Project Astra will first land with people in its trusted tester program. A time frame for when it might go public wasn't given.
Project Astra's ocular capabilities will certainly raise privacy concerns. Google said it's working with its Responsibility and Safety Committee, the company's interview review group, to flag potential risks. This includes flags to prevent users from unintentionally sharing sensitive information with agents and controls so that users can delete sessions.
Google's latest wave of announcements come as major AI advancements have slowed and Wall Street investment has softened. At the same time, OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, have been releasing newer, more advanced models and raising billions of dollars in investments. It's a race between Google and OpenAI, which is heavily backed by Microsoft, to see which Big Tech giant will lead the race in AI. Some analysts believe that AI development will be a winner-take-all race, with the best tech leading the market. Microsoft has already spent $19 billion, and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says Google will spend $100 billion on AI. The AI market is expected to be valued at $1.8 trillion by 2030, according to a report by Grand View Research.
Gemini, Project Mariner lead other announcements
From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.
While Project Astra certainly ignites imaginations of what's possible with this all-seeing AI tech, Gemini is also getting a big update. Gemini 2.0 will have advanced reasoning capabilities with better responses across the board, from general queries to coding questions and even math, according to Google. The company says Gemini 2.0 also works faster than previous versions. An early experimental version of Gemini 2.0 will be given to developers before going out to the wider public.
Luckily, starting Wednesday, fans can play with the chat version of Gemini 2.0 Flash via the Gemini app on their phones. Gemini 2.0 Flash is a lighter version of Gemini 2.0. Google says Gemini 2.0 will expand to more Google products early next year.
Along with news on Project Astra and Gemini 2.0, Google also unveiled Project Mariner, a prototype Chrome extension that can help with more complex tasks. Currently limited to Chrome for trusted testers, it can analyze text, images, graphs and other web elements at the pixel level and use that information to complete complex tasks. Google's still working on Mariner and admits that the tech isn't always accurate and is slow to complete tasks.
Google's engineers have also been working on ways to have AI help with your gaming. In partnership with Supercell, creator of Clash of Clans and Brawl Stars, Google is working on an AI that can answer questions about the games you're playing, like what you need to do to beat a boss. Google didn't unveil how its AI will be able to deliver this information. Is it based on information provided from the game developer? Or is Google sucking up information from gaming guides published online?
Google also announced Jules, another AI agent the company working on to help with coding. Jules integrates into a GitHub workflow.
For more on AI, check out OpenAI's Sora Turbo announcement and Google's new quantum AI chip.