The tech giant finally has an answer for GPT-4.
Google has long chafed at Open AI dominating the AI-based audio, video, and text market with its game-changing ChatGPT generative artificial intelligence platform.
Now, it officially it has a formidable challenger to the Generative AI throne with its Gemini rollout.
Released on December 5, Gemini is Google’s “largest and most capable AI model” in the words of company chief executive officer Sundar Pichai.
“(At Google), we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible,” Pichai said in a Wednesday blog post. “Now, we’re taking the next step on our journey with Gemini, our most capable and general model yet, with state-of-the-art performance across many leading benchmarks.”
Google’s first version, Gemini 1.0, will be optimized for different sizes – Ultra, Pro and Nano, Pichai adds.
“These are the first models of the Gemini era and the first realization of the vision we had when we formed Google DeepMind earlier this year,” he says. “This new era of models represents one of the biggest science and engineering efforts we’ve undertaken as a company. I’m genuinely excited for what’s ahead, and for the opportunities Gemini will unlock for people everywhere.”
Gemini represents the result of large-scale collaborative efforts by teams across Google on the Gen AI front. “It was built from the ground up to be multimodal, which means it can generalize and seamlessly understand, operate across, and combine different types of information including text, code, audio, image, and video,” said Demis Hassabis, CEO at Google Deep Mind.
Hassabis notes that Gemini has been rigorously safely tested, particularly gauging Gemini’s ability to track, label, and remove toxic audio, video, or text from the platform.
A Staggered Rollout
As for the three phases Pichai referred to, each should break down as follows:
• Gemini will initially be released in Google’s Bard AI chatbot, with Gemini Pro introduced immediately.
• A more robust Gen AI tool – Gemini Ultra – will roll out in early 2024 in a new company Gen AI version tapped as ‘Bard Advanced’. Developers should expect to get early access to Gemini Ultra in the second week of December, in Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and the company’s AI Studio.
• Gemini Nano for on-device applications will soon be introduced on Google Pixel phones, starting with the Pixel 8 Pro.
Pichai says that the Gemini rollout presents “incredible momentum” for Google, as an idea whose time has come.
“Nearly eight years into our journey as an AI-first company, the pace of progress is only accelerating: Millions of people are now using generative AI across our products to do things they couldn’t even a year ago, from finding answers to more complex questions to using new tools to collaborate and create,” he says. “At the same time, developers are using our models and infrastructure to build new generative AI applications, and startups and enterprises around the world are growing with our AI tools.”
“That’s what excites me about (Gemini),” Pichai notes. “We have the chance to make AI helpful for everyone, everywhere in the world.”
Brian O’Connell, a former Wall Street bond trader and best-selling author, is a prominent figure in the finance industry. With a substantial background as an ex-Wall Street trader, he has authored two best-selling books: ‘The 401k Millionaire’ and ‘CNBC’s Creating Wealth’, demonstrating his profound knowledge of finance and investing.
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