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Google has three AI chatbots: Bard (similar to ChatGPT), Gemini (similar to GPT) for big language models, and Imagen (an AI picture generating system).
Google Says:
“Last December, we brought Gemini Pro into Bard in English, giving Bard more advanced understanding, reasoning, summarizing and coding abilities. Today Gemini Pro in Bard will be available in over 40 languages and more than 230 countries and territories, so more people can collaborate with this faster, more capable version of Bard.”
Without the preceding context, the above explanation would have been confusing to most people, but basically, the platform is now making its Bard chatbot more powerful, with advanced AI models powering its responses, as well as adding image generation capability within Bard itself, powered by Imagen.
AI Development
the platform has taken a conservative approach to generative AI development, criticizing others for pushing too hard and too quickly with their generative AI tools. Some argue that this is anti-competitive bias, with it simply protecting its turf as more people use tools like ChatGPT for search queries. However, the platform believes that generative AI should be deployed gradually to avoid misuse, which has already resulted in a number of regulatory concerns.
But today, the platform is taking the next steps with some of its generative AI tools, with Bard, as reported, receiving improved system thinking and image production, Maps now getting new conversational questions, driven by AI, to facilitate place discovery, and Imagen 2.
The next step of its visual creation system is being put out with its image-generation tools.
Google Can Now Generate Images
As explained by Google:
“Imagen 2 has been trained on higher-quality, image-description pairings and generates more detailed images that are better aligned with the semantics of people’s language prompts. It’s more accurate than our previous system at processing details, and it’s more capable at capturing nuance – delivering more photorealistic images across a range of styles and use cases.”
Here’s how to try it:
1. Open up a google search and enter an image generation prompt
2. Wait a few seconds
3. Take a look at the four image options shared by the SGE
It’s that simple. If you want to edit the images further, select one of them then amend the description to add more detail.
Safety Measures by Google
This will provide for more opportunities to generate better visuals within Google’s systems, which will also include multiple protections to limit “problematic outputs like violent, offensive, or sexually explicit content”.
“All images generated with Imagen 2 in our consumer products will be marked by SynthID, a tool developed by Google DeepMind, that adds a digital watermark directly into the pixels of images we generate. SynthID watermarks are imperceptible to the human eye but detectable for identification.”
Given the recent controversy surrounding AI-generated images of Taylor Swift, this is an important measure, and it is one of several concerns that Google has repeatedly raised in its rapid rollout of AI tools, that we do not yet have all of the systems and processes in place to fully protect against this type of abuse.
In this regard, Google’s AI generations may be safer and more dependable, yet OpenAI’s tools have definitely seized the lead as the AI tools of choice, at least during this initial push.
Nonetheless, Google is evolving its own solutions, which may potentially become even more lucrative, depending on how its systems grow. There are presently numerous possibilities for generative AI search and development, but the industry will eventually mature, and the top performing tools will emerge, capturing a larger market share.
Google hopes that its more conservative, methodical approach will prevail in the long term, given it has more resources and capabilities than most of its competitors.
And if Google wins, it can protect its core Search business by ensuring that conversational AI does not entirely consume its market. At least not fast, which provides more impetus for Google to improve its AI skills over time.
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