Google rushed to launch its generative AI-backed Bard chatbot in February last year as a counterweight to OpenAI‘s ChatGPT. However, just about a year after the launch of Bard, Google may be planning to change its name to Gemini, along with a number of other changes, including the launch of a dedicated app and the introduction of a paid language model for “complex” tasks.
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The news of Google changing the name of its AI model was revealed via a post on X by Android app developer Dylan Roussel, who shared an image of a Google Bard changelog dated February 7, meaning the new changes could be rolling out in a few days.
The alleged changelog reveals the reason behind the name change to Gemini: “We’re committed to giving everyone direct access to Google Al and, as of this week, every Gemini user across our supported countries and languages has access to Google’s best family of Al models. To better reflect this commitment, we’ve renamed Bard to Gemini.”
The changelog also suggests that Google may be launching a dedicated Gemini app for Android and iOS devices. The Gemini app will initially be available in English on “select devices” in the US, with other languages including Japanese, Korean and English rolling out globally in the following days, and support for more countries and languages could come soon enough. The changelog notes that the launch of the Gemini app is a step towards realising the “vision to deliver the world’s most helpful Al assistant”.
The new upgrade could also bring with it the announcement of Google’s Gemini Advanced version, powered by the Gemini Ultra 1.0 language model. Google had announced its Gemini family of language models in a blog post late last year, and while Gemini Pro and Gemini Nano were made available immediately, Gemini Ultra was scheduled to be available “early” this year.
Google had previously claimed that the Ultra was its “largest and most capable model”, designed for highly complex tasks. Gemini Ultra has also been touted as the first language model to “outperform human experts at MMLU (massive multitask language understanding)”, and Google has positioned Gemini Ultra as a means of finally taking on the might of GPT-4-powered ChatGPT, which is currently believed to be the most powerful chatbot.
Similar to OpenAI’s GPT-4 language model, access to the Gemini Advanced-based Ulta 1.0 language model will be behind a paywall, according to the changelog. However, the exact pricing for the virtual assistant is not yet known, and more information will come only after an official announcement from Google.
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Published: 05 Feb 2024, 05:39 PM IST