Leaked details have emerged about Google’s generative AI plans ahead of its annual I/O conference.
At Google I/O 2023, which takes place this Wednesday, the company is expected to share major AI announcements to take on Microsoft and OpenAI in the ongoing “AI arms race.” Information shared with CNBC(opens in a new tab) And The Wall Street Journal(opens in a new tab) provides details on Google’s plans to unveil a new version of its big language model, updates to its Bard AI chatbot, and generative AI features for Google’s search engine. The overriding message would be how AI can help people realize their full potential.
It’s a big moment for Google. After the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, a “code red(opens in a new tab)“, and Microsoft announced its own GPT-4-powered chatbot Bing, Google has been scrambling to catch up to competitors and maintain its position as the top search dog. A botched launch of its AI chatbot Bard and ethical concerns over the rush to develop AI The artificial intelligence tools and features that Google announces tomorrow could be decisive when it comes to maintaining the company’s status as a legitimate wearer of the tech industry’s crown ( sorry, the coronation is still in the lead).
Here’s what we might see at tomorrow’s Google I/O conference:
PaLM 2 unveiled
According to CNBC, Google is announcing a new version of its LLM called PaLM 2. The previous model, PaLM, which was released in 2022, is what powers Google’s AI chatbot, Bard. So with a more advanced LLM, we can expect Bard to improve as well. PaLM 2 is said to include over 100 languages and has been tested with coding, math, creative writing and analysis.
Bard and Search Updates
According to CNBC, Google is also working on a multimodal version of Bard, which means it can support media input and output. He is also reportedly working on larger versions of the chatbot internally called “Big Bard” and “Giant Bard”.
The possible announcement that will have the biggest impact on daily users is a revamp of its traditional search format. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Google plans to make the search process more conversational, with follow-up prompts and contextual information for queries that “traditional web results can’t easily answer.” This may include user-generated content from TikTok and other social media creator posts. In case you didn’t know, Gen Z basically uses TikTok as their search engine instead of Google. It is therefore a clear attempt to bring young users back into the fold.
The chat feature in search is codenamed “Magi” and was revealed in April, but with few details. Now we have a more concrete idea of what that would look like. How this relates to Bard, or if it’s technically the same as Bard, which was just moved to the search page, is still unclear.
New Workspace Features
In March, Google announced generative AI features for Google Workspace and Gmail, which included a tool for writing text in Google Docs and writing emails. Now it is reported that Google will announce AI integrations for Google Slides and Google Sheets. According to CNBC, Slides will come with a tool to generate images based on text prompts and Sheets will use AI to generate spreadsheet templates. There was no specific mention of Google Docs and Gmail in the leaks, but Google I/O would be an opportune time to share further updates, so we’re not rolling it back just yet.
