During the launch of Google’s Pixel phone on Tuesday, a product manager named David Citron took the stage to show off the mobile capabilities of the company’s new AI assistant, Gemini. Things got awkward immediately after the host told the audience, “all the demos today are live, by the way.”
In front of a large crowd of media and analysts at of Google At the Silicon Valley headquarters and about 100,000 YouTube viewers, Citron snapped a photo of a concert poster and asked the assistant to check his calendar to see if late-night pop star Sabrina Carpenter was free to play in San Francisco.
The demo failed, fixed and displayed an error message. Citron tried again, with the same result. After a quick verbal appeal to the “demonstration gods” and a phone exchange, the third attempt was successful.
“Sure, I found out that Sabrina Carpenter is coming to San Francisco on November 9, 2024,” the assistant wrote in a message that appeared on Citron’s screen. “I don’t see any events in your calendar during this time.”
While the incident was brief and confusing, the demonstration highlighted one of Google’s strengths as AI features make their way deeper into smartphone software. Rivals are preparing consumers for the future of artificial intelligence, but Google’s Gemini features are real and shipping — at least for testing purposes — now.
In June, Apple presented a pre-recorded video, rather than a live demo, to showcase the Siri assistant’s impending leap in the ability to take actions and understand the context of the new AI system called Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence is currently in developer testing, but some of its most critical improvements, including image generation, integration with ChatGPT, and key developments for the Siri assistant, have yet to officially leave its labs Apple.
OpenAI, which started the AI boom with ChatGPT, also frequently reveals AI advances, but strictly limits the number of people who can test them.
“I think what’s new is that we’ve moved from being like projecting a vision of where things are going to being the actual shipping product,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s head of devices, told CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa on Tuesday.
Google’s live demos mark a shift from late last year, when the company tried to show off Gemini in a demo and ended up being heavily criticized for its video editing.
“What we’ve shown today is the stuff that’s being shipped in the next few days or weeks, and that’s really critical,” Osterloh said. “For a lot of the things that other companies have announced, they’re not really available to a lot of people. This will be available to millions of people very soon.”
Following Apple’s announcement in June, the company did some live scenario testing with media and analysts for Apple Intelligence on current devices. In July, Apple released a preview of some Apple Intelligence features for developers, including the ability to create summaries as well as a new skin for Siri that makes the entire iPhone screen glow. However, the preview does not include features like image creation, ChatGPT integration, and the more anticipated improvements to Siri that will allow it to perform tasks naturally.
Google’s launch on Tuesday could put renewed pressure on Apple as the two smartphone market leaders race to integrate artificial intelligence into their operating systems. IDC estimates that “Gen AI”-enabled smartphones — phones with the chips and memory needed to run artificial intelligence — will more than quadruple in units sold in 2024 to about 234 million devices.
“We have an idea today of what Apple is competing against,” Grace Harmon, an analyst at eMarketer, said in an interview.
As genetic AI moves into phones, the market will also see a shift in AI processing. Instead of sophisticated models that mimic human production run on huge Nvidia-based on data centers, AI functions for devices will be based on simpler functions such as summarization or fluency, mostly running on the chips already inside the devices.
In Google’s 100-minute presentation on Tuesday, the company showed off several features not yet available elsewhere.
Citron’s example—asking questions about a poster’s content in a photo—highlights a technical advance called “multimodal artificial intelligence,” which is not a planned Apple feature.
The company introduced a feature that allows users to take screenshots of what they’re seeing, and Google will compile that information into notes that can be quickly searched later.
Google’s most important presentation on Tuesday was Gemini Live, its next-generation assistant. In the demo, the technology was able to converse naturally, like a person, adding items to shopping lists or checking Google calendars. Soon, it will be able to help a user do deep research, Osterloh said on stage. Google executives attributed the capabilities to “decades of investment” in AI and its “comprehensive AI strategy.”
At one point, Google said that its AI was a “complete end-to-end experience that only Google can deliver,” an adaptation of a phrase long taken from Apple. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, is fond of saying that “only Apple” can create its products because of its expertise in hardware and software integration.
In one press releaseGoogle took a chance on Apple’s upcoming integration with ChatGPT, which is expected before the end of the year. The company said Apple’s approach is less private than Google’s because Gemini “does not require handing over to a third-party AI provider you may not know or trust.”
