Google has finally launched its next generation AI system called Gemini. While the company already has Bard, it is expected that Gemini AI is the AI system through which Google hopes to compete — even beat — the likes of ChatGPT by OpenAI. Announcing the launch of Gemini, Google CEO Sundar Pichai called it the “biggest science and engineering efforts we’ve undertaken as a company.”Pichai also said that Gemini is the culmination of eight years of AI work that Google has been doing. He said that Gemini AI will be available in three modes — Ultra, Pro and Nano. As the name suggests in Ultra, Gemini will be utilising the biggest LLM (large language model) to perform its AI tasks. The Pro will use a smaller LLM while the Nano will make use of the smallest LLM. This also opens the possibility that Nano will likely be available to run locally on computers and phones.
Google says that Gemini will become part of many Google products and services, including Bard — its AI system that is already available to users. The company says that from today onwards “Bard will use a fine-tuned version of Gemini Pro for more advanced reasoning, planning, understanding and more.” In the coming months, Google says, Gemini “will be available in more of our products and services like Search, Ads, Chrome and Duet AI.” The company says that Gemini is a multi-modal AI system and will be able to interact with users through various input methods — including text, images and audio.In a head-to-head comparison between OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini, Google claims superiority based on a thorough analysis of 32 benchmarks. According to DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Gemini outperforms GPT-4 in 30 out of these 32 benchmarks. Gemini 1.0 is rolling out across Google products, including Bard, Pixel 8 Pro, and Search. Developers and enterprise customers can access Gemini Pro via the Gemini API in Google AI Studio or Google Cloud Vertex AI starting from December 13. Gemini Ultra is currently undergoing trust and safety checks and will be available for early experimentation in the coming months.