😺 Huge day for Google | The Neuron

😺 Huge day for Google

PLUS: Bard gets an upgrade

Written By
Noah Edelman
Noah Edelman
Jul 29, 2024
4 minute read

Welcome, humans.

Google had a HUGE day yesterday, so we’re devoting the entire newsletter to Google’s AI announcements. We promise they aren’t paying us.

That said, hey Google, should you fancy reaching 63,000+ AI aficionados, our line is always open. ☎️

Here’s what’s going on in AI today:

  • Google is bringing AI to Workspace apps.
  • Bard (now PaLM-powered) removed its waitlist.
  • Google demoed its AI-powered search engine.
  • Google launched a Github Copilot competitor.

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AI Is Coming To All Your Google Apps 🚀

Google is bringing AI to its Workspace apps with “Duet AI”. It’s their version of Microsoft Copilot.

We'd need the energy of a caffeinated cat to cover everything, but in a nutshell, it’s confirmed: you’ll see an AI assistant in all of Google’s productivity apps by EOY:

  • Gmail: full email responses w/ auto-drafting (incl. on mobile!).
  • Meet: customizable background images.
  • Docs: get help writing anything
  • Sheets: build Sheets templates using a prompt.
  • Slides: AI-generated artwork.

Much of this will be at your fingertips through “Sidekick", a workplace sidebar that contextualizes your docs and sifts through the internet.

As the internet invades productivity apps, these apps are also reaching out to the internet: Google is equipping Bard with plugin capabilities, enabling it to tap into Drive, Gmail, Docs, and more when you're chatting.

Bard is also integrating apps like Kayak, OpenTable, and Khan Academy (bestie), prompting a head-on collision in plugins with both Bing and ChatGPT.

Time for rapid-fire:

  1. Bard is now powered by PaLM 2, a significantly more capable language model. They’re also working on Gemini, their even more capable model.
  2. Bard is removing its waitlist and will soon support 40 languages.
  3. Bard will start supporting visual inputs and outputs, not just text!

Why it (all) matters: Most people assumed that Google was lagging behind Microsoft in the AI race. They've just caught up in 24 hours.

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Google Search Is Getting An AI Makeover 💄

Recess is over. Please take your seats, students!

Google is officially committing to putting generative AI in search results.

The new search incorporates an AI-powered summary of key information above search results listings. From there, you can toggle the answer to gain further insight and even engage in follow-up queries through chat.

  • The product maintains the context from one query to the next, ensuring that you aren't starting from scratch with every new question.
  • It’ll also support vertical search experiences, like enabling access to the 35 billion products listed on Google Shopping Graph.

It combines all aspects of the search discovery process into a single interface (unlike Bing which splits up search and chat). Two important things to note:

One, advertisements aren’t going anywhere. Google execs made clear that there’s plenty of room for ads.

And two, this new search isn’t Bard. It uses a combination of Google’s language models including MUM and PaLM 2.

Why it matters: This is the big change everyone is watching. How much risk to their bottom line will Google take in pursuit of innovating on a new experience?

Around the Horn 🦄

Google topped Every. Single. Headline. Today.

  • Google announced PaLM 2, their enhanced large language model (w/ 540 billion parameters) that already powers 25 products.
  • Google is building Project Tailwind designed to generate private models trained on your selected files from Drive.
  • Google Maps is adding a new immersive view for maps that’s powered by computer vision and AI.
  • Vertex, Google’s enterprise platform for deploying AI models, announced new features.

Treats To Try 🍿

But wait, there's more! Here's a look at Google’s other big product releases from yesterday:

  • Magic Editor: a new AI toolkit that performs complex photo edits inside Google Photos.
  • MusicLM is Google’s text-to-music tool that turns text descriptions into tunes.
  • Codey is a Github Copilot competitor that can handle queries regarding Google Cloud.
  • Studio Bot is an AI tool that helps developers build Android apps.
  • Magic Compose, a new feature on Android that offers auto-generated replies to text messages.

DM us links on Twitter: @nonmayorpete & @noahedelman02.

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Trivia answer: The left is real, and the right is Midjourney (the lime is floating!).

That's all we have for today. See you cool cats on Twitter if you're there: @nonmayorpete & @noahedelman02.

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