Google hosted its annual developer conference, I/O 2024, today at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. CEO Sundar Pichai led the keynote, which heavily emphasized the company's advancements in artificial intelligence, particularly with Gemini AI.
Google announced several enhancements to its Gemini AI model. Gemini 1.5 Pro, a more powerful version, is now available in Workspace Labs. Gemini Advanced will expand to support 2 million tokens later this year, significantly increasing its capacity for processing information.
Gemini 1.5 Flash, a lighter version designed for low-latency tasks, was also introduced. Additionally, Google unveiled Project Astra, an AI agent capable of understanding context and taking action swiftly. A demonstration showed Gemini answering questions based on real-time image analysis.
Google showcased Gemini AI's capabilities in generating media, including photos, music, and video, based on user prompts. While some of these features will be initially available to selected creators, a waiting list is now open in Google Labs.
Google introduced Trillium, its sixth-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). This new chip boasts a 4.7x performance improvement over its predecessor and will be available to cloud customers in late 2024.
Google Search now incorporates AI-powered features, offering more comprehensive and informative results. This feature is currently rolling out in the US and will expand to other countries soon. Additionally, a new video search function allows users to ask questions through video queries.
The Gemini AI side panel will become generally available in Google apps next month. Gmail will receive three new features, including email summarization and comparison based on user prompts. Google also demonstrated how Gemini AI can integrate data across various Google products.
Chips AI is a new feature that can read and respond to messages in chats based on user prompts.
Google Live, set to launch later this year, will enable users to engage in conversations with Gemini AI.
Google is integrating AI-powered search into smartphones. Gemini AI will become the default assistant, and the "Circle to Search" feature will gain new capabilities. Gemini will also become context-aware, anticipating user needs based on their phone activities. Additionally, Talkback will receive Gemini AI Nano features to enhance accessibility.
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