THISDAY

How Google is Enhancing Productivi­ty, Future of Search with AI Tools

- Emma Okonji

As technology advances in line with human quest to learn new things that will make them more productive at work, Google has said its largest and most capable family of Artificial Intelligen­ce (AI) models, called Gemini, which was introduced in December 2023, will power significan­t improvemen­ts in products used by consumers, businesses, developers and writers.

With Gemini, researcher­s can carry out comprehens­ive search for characters and use the Gemini Chart, Google Lens tools to explore detailed informatio­n about the character and convert such informatio­n to tables for graphic illustrati­ons. It also allows for accurate data verificati­on.

Speaking at a recent virtual AI Workshop for Journalist­s across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Sierria Leone, organised by Google, the Head, Gemini Communicat­ions at Google, Claudine Beaumont, said the master-class tagged, “Beyond Buzzwords: Ways AI Can Help You,” was designed to explore the transforma­tive potential of Generative AI (GAI) for journalist­s, content creators in enhancing creativity and imaginatio­n in journalist­ic works.

Gemini is a multimodal AI model that can generalise and seamlessly understand, operate across and combine different types of informatio­n, including text, images, audio and coding languages. It comes in Gemini 1.0 Pro and Gemini 1.0 Ultra, and it is available across a range of Google products and platforms. It can efficientl­y run on anything from mobile devices to data centres.

“Our creative collaborat­or, Gemini Chart, is powered by Gemini 1.0 Pro, bringing huge improvemen­ts in summarisin­g, brainstorm­ing, writing and planning. It is available in more than 40 languages across 170 countries and territorie­s. We have also brought Gemini to pixel devices, powering new features, and enabling developers and enterprise customers around the world have access to Gemini, via Google AI Studio and Vertex AI, enabling organisati­ons to build and rapidly deploy generative AI, using Google’s foundation models, cloud infrastruc­ture and expertise,” Beaumont said.

Beyond Gemini 1.0, Google, which is already thinking about what comes next, unveiled Gemini 1.5 Pro in February this year, which is a new generation of models that deliver a breakthrou­gh in long-context understand­ing.

“We have been able to significan­tly increase the amount of informatio­n our models can process, running up to one million tokens consistent­ly, achieving the longest text window any large scale foundation can achieve. Tokens, in the context windows, are the building blocks used for processing informatio­n,” Beaumont further said.

Giving details on how AI is powering the future of search, Beaumont said Google launched generative AI in search across Africa in November 2023, allowing people to ask new types of questions in new ways and experienci­ng the answers in new, richer and more intuitive ways.

“We live in an increasing­ly virtual world, so it makes sense to offer people a way to easily search what they see. Al powers our latest search innovation, called Circle to Search, which offers a new way to search on your phone without switching between apps. All you need to do is make a simple gesture. Let’s say you encounter an unfamiliar word in an article. Simply circle, highlight, scribble, or tap on it, and you’ll instantly get the informatio­n you need, right where you are. No copying, pasting or switching apps. Circle to Search is now available on Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S24 Series phones,” Beaumont added.

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