Google I/O: Search engine giant bets big on generative AI, to roll out features across its products

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday, at Google's annual developers' conference I/O, said the search engine giant is doubling down on generative AI. Speaking during the keynote, Pichai spoke about how Google is baking in generative AI in its various offering — Gmail, Maps, Photos, et al. All these new features have been dubbed "Duet for AI" — Google's answer to Microsoft's "Copilot".

Here are all the generative AI-related announcements from Google I/O:

Google will roll out "Help Me Write" for Gmail this year, Pichai said. This feature will allow users to use a prompt button in compose view to help write an email — sometimes pulling information from previous, related emails.

"Help Me Write" will also help users draft job descriptions, essays, sales pitches, stories, and more in Docs, while also improving functionality in Sheets, Meet and other Workspace products, Google said.

"Immersive View" for Google Maps, as the name implies, will map out a user's route to make it a "multidimensional experience" with information like weather, air quality, traffic conditions, bicycle lanes, etc. However, this feature will be not be coming to India — it will rolled out later this year only in certain cities across the world: Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Tokyo, and Venice.

This feature, according to Google, will allow users to "make complex edits without pro-level editing skills".

"Using a combination of AI techniques, including generative AI, it will help you make edits to specific parts of an image — like the subject, sky or background — so you have even more control over the final look and feel of your photo," the company said.

Google further said Magic Editor will also help with the composition of photographs.

Google unveiled the Pathways Language Model (PaLM) last year, which utilises an AI architecture known as "Pathways" to train a single model to perform an extensive range of tasks. On Wednesday, the tech giant announced PaLM 2, which boasts enhanced multilingual, reasoning, and coding capabilities, making it "faster, more efficient, and capable of powering 25 first-party products and features".

Google also said PaLM 2 has been trained on multilingual text across 100+ languages, resulting in a "significant improvement" in its ability to comprehend, produce, and translate nuanced text such as riddles, poems, and idioms.

"We are rapidly evolving Bard," Pichai said on Wednesday. Google's answer to ChatGPT, Bard will now run on PaLM 2 and can program in 25 different languages. Further, Bard will also be integrated into Google's core products — Search, Gmail, Docs, Lens, Maps, Sheets, etc. It must be noted that Bard is currently unavailable in India, though Google said it is opening it up in over 180 countries starting Wednesday, with support soon for 40 languages.

Google said its latest addition to Search includes "advanced generative AI capabilities aimed at simplifying the search process". This feature not only enables users to grasp a topic faster, but also provides them with new perspectives and insights, resulting in easier completion of tasks, the company said. By utilising generative AI in Search, Google can help shoppers make informed purchase decisions by presenting them with a comprehensive view of the product.

This feature, dubbed "Search Generative Experience" (SGE), is currently undergoing an experimental phase at Search Labs. It is available to users in the United States on Chrome desktop and the Google App (English-only during its initial release) for Android and iOS.