Google’s main I/O 2024 keynote was jam-packed with a ton of new AI features that are coming to desktop and mobile, thanks to Gemini. There will be new ways to search Google through video and multimodal prompt requests, while smartphones eventually get AI superpowers through the camera with Project Astra.
First, what is Gemini?
Gemini is basically Google’s family of AI models, which include Gemini Nano, Gemini Pro, and Gemini Ultra. In short, it’s Google’s version of OpenAI and its own GPT models, like ChatGPT.
Gemini can understand and generate text like other large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s GPT. However, Gemini can do a bit more — it understands, operates on, and combines other forms of information like images, video, audio, and even code.
A parent’s AI companion
Ask Photos with Gemini is one of the many new Gemini features announced at I/O 2024, and it will be in Google Photos later this year. Long story short, you can search through your massive photo library with a more conversational approach instead of keywords.
In the Google I/O demo, Google showed that you can just ask, “What’s my license plate again?” or “When did my daughter learn to swim?” to bring up photos that answer those requests. It even goes a step further with requests like “Show me how my daughter’s swimming has progressed.” Queries like this make Gemini look back at your photos by date and context for an appropriate result.
I can’t wait to use this
Google Ask Photos is not the only Gemini AI feature that Google showed off at Google I/O 2024. And while it’s the one I’m most excited about because of its practicality, there are other exciting things I want to check out, too.
For example, Project Astra seemed intriguing. I often use my phone to capture a photo of something that I want to save for later and learn more about, like plants and flowers. But with Astra, you’ll have that AI goodness right in the camera, and it can tell you about what you’re looking at in real time. And though Google did not announce any smart glasses, Project Astra showed that this would be an incredible feature to have in smart glasses at some point.
I’m also quite eager to check out the multimodal prompt requests in Google Search powered with Gemini. I’m not the type of person to enjoy planning anything, so if Google can do the leg work for me, then I’m all for it. And though I don’t think the real-time scam alerts will be super useful for me (I never answer the phone anyway), it’s going to be a very useful feature for others.
Ask Photos with Gemini should be making its way into Google Photos later this summer, and I can’t wait to give it a try.
