Google rebrands its AI services as Gemini, launches new app and subscription service
Google has introduced a free artificial intelligence app that will implant the technology on smartphones
SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Thursday introduced a free artificial intelligence app that will enable people to rely on technology instead of their own brains to write, interpret what they're reading and deal with a variety of other task in their lives.
With the advent of the Gemini app, named after an AI project unveiled late last year, Google will cast aside the Bard chatbot that it introduced a year ago in an effort to catch up with ChatGPT, the chatbot unleashed by the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI in late 2022. Google is immediately releasing a standalone Gemini app for smartphones running on its Android software.
In a few weeks, Google will put Gemini's features into its existing search app for iPhones, where Apple would prefer people rely on its Siri voice assistant for handling various tasks.
Although the Google voice assistant that has been available for years will stick around, company executives say they expect Gemini to become the main way users apply the technology to help them think, plan and create. It marks Google's next foray down a new and potentially perilous avenue while remaining focused on its founding goal “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
“We think this is one of the most profound ways we are going to advance our mission," Sissie Hsiao, a Google general manager overseeing Gemini, told reporters ahead of Thursday's announcement.
The Gemini app initially will be released in the U.S. in English before expanding to the Asia-Pacific region next week, with versions in Japanese and Korean.
Besides the free version of Gemini, Google will be selling an
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