Google I/O 2024: 5 Gemini features that would pull me away from Copilot

Again in late 2022, the in a single day success of ChatGPT energized Google to launch a chatbot simply 4 months later. Gemini, named Bard on the time, has had a tumultuous journey since then, present process numerous upgrades and a complete rebrand.

Regardless of all the massive language mannequin (LLM) upgrades, from LaMDA to PaLM 2 to Gemini Professional, Google’s chatbot has failed to realize the recognition of its rivals. With the corporate’s annual developer occasion, Google I/O, only a weekend away, we are able to anticipate Google to roll out Gemini updates to make the chatbot extra interesting to the general public.

After monitoring the evolution of Gemini since its launch and testing many different generative AI chatbots, I’ve rounded up a number of the options Google may convey to Gemini to considerably enhance the person expertise, making the device a extra worthy chatbot competitor, and a possible alternative for my present AI default, Copilot.

1. A extra immersive Gemini expertise on iOS 

The primary and most evident win can be for Google to make Gemini extra engaging for iOS customers. Since its rebrand in February, Google has been positioning Gemini as an AI assistant able to going past what an peculiar chatbot can do — and with Android telephones, it has accomplished simply that.

By downloading the Gemini app, Android customers can make the most of some neat integrations, equivalent to accessing Gemini wherever they’d frequently use their Google Assistant, activating an overlay expertise that tells Gemini what’s on their display screen, and even accessing Google Assistant voice options, equivalent to setting a timer on their cellphone.

iOS customers, nonetheless, cannot obtain a devoted Gemini app; entry to the chatbot is restricted to the Google app. This can be a enormous missed alternative provided that many Apple customers have Google as their default search engine. They may profit from experimenting with Gemini as an assistant, particularly with out an Apple AI chatbot native to the iOS expertise.

Microsoft Copilot is an effective instance of what Google may very well be doing with Gemini. The Copilot app presently ranks #22 within the App Retailer’s Productiveness class. If Google needs to market Gemini as an on a regular basis AI assistant, iOS customers ought to get a standalone app.

2. Computerized footnotes 

When you ask Gemini a query, the chatbot will reply with out footnotes or supply hyperlinks. To be able to confirm the accuracy and validity of its solutions, Gemini provides a useful “double-check with Google” function. The function exhibits customers the place components of the solutions are sourced from. This additional step, nonetheless, requires an additional refresh, which might interrupt the person’s workflow.

Moreover, whenever you click on the “double-check with Google” button, Gemini would not listing all of the sources. For components of the response, the chatbot would possibly say that Google Search did not discover related content material (see the screenshot under). This response undermines the reliability of the solutions and provides an additional layer of doubt when utilizing the chatbot.

Certainly one of Gemini’s benefits is that, in contrast to ChatGPT, it’s linked to the web. Google ought to capitalize on this performance and create options to construct belief with its viewers, together with clickable footnotes to supply content material with out an additional step, a function that Copilot already provides.

3. Doc uploads 

Gemini is already multimodal and helps the enter of voice and picture prompts along with textual content. As useful as these two options are, the flexibility to import paperwork may assist take the chatbot to the subsequent stage. Including this function would unlock a brand new suite of prospects.

Anthropic’s Claude, for instance, lets customers import paperwork without spending a dime. This functionality is without doubt one of the chatbot’s largest benefits as a result of it permits customers to work with supplies they work together with every day.

Whether or not you desire a analysis paper summarized, a wordy contract defined, or have questions on a PDF you are utilizing, AI chatbots with document-reading capabilities can assist.

Including this function would additionally give Gemini a aggressive benefit over its largest rival, ChatGPT, which solely provides doc importing within the premium model of its chatbot, ChatGPT Plus, which prices $20 monthly. 

4. Improved privateness controls

Customers obtain an ominous message once they open Gemini: “Your conversations are processed by human reviewers to enhance the applied sciences powering Gemini Apps. Do not enter something you would not need reviewed or used.”

While you click on to be taught extra concerning the message, Gemini says: “If you do not need future conversations reviewed or used to enhance machine studying fashions, flip off Gemini Apps Exercise.”

But whenever you go to that new window, you obtain a contradicting message: “Your chats are saved in your account for as much as 72 hours, whether or not Gemini Apps Exercise is on or off. Google makes use of this information to supply the service, preserve its security and safety, and course of any suggestions you select to supply.”

So, it looks as if Google will save your chats and proceed to evaluate them till the 72-hour mark. Whereas it’s true that generative AI fashions get smarter by studying from person inputs, many AI chatbots enable customers to choose out of that function solely, having no chats saved in any respect.

For instance, since April 2023, OpenAI has let customers choose out of getting ChatGPT use their information to coach its fashions or save chats. Simply this week, OpenAI up to date ChatGPT’s information controls even additional by including a Momentary Chat choice for customers who would like to not have their chats saved to their chat historical past even when the mannequin enchancment is turned off.

Generative AI customers are usually extra conscious of their information privateness as a result of they do not need their data utilized in future solutions or shared with others. To encourage extra use of its chatbot, Google ought to deal with privateness issues and add a clearer and all-encompassing opt-out choice.

5. Focus extra on Gemini than on forcing SGE 

As I discussed in the beginning of this text, Google has been attempting lengthy and onerous to popularize its AI fashions. Consequently, the tech large has carried out a few of its generative AI choices in its hottest product, its search engine, via the Search Generative Expertise (SGE). 

With SGE, customers get an AI-generated reply to their search engine immediate on the prime of search outcomes. That is meant to supply fast, useful, conversational solutions that require much less scrolling. Nonetheless, public suggestions suggests the expertise is complicated and aggravating. Customers discover that SGE disrupts the common search circulation.

When Google first introduced SGE, it was accessible via Google’s Search Labs, the place customers must choose in to make use of the function. Since then, nonetheless, many customers have reported seeing SGE seem of their search outcomes even when they hadn’t opted in.

In March 2024, Google confirmed through a press release to Search Engine Land {that a} “subset of queries, on a small share of search visitors within the US” would get SGE. This pressured publicity is leaving customers with a detrimental opinion of Google’s AI tech.

The answer right here is easy. Google ought to give attention to making its generative AI choices, like Gemini, extra engaging to customers, in order that they need to take part, reasonably than forcing its AI options into a well-liked product, like Google Search.