The Six Five team discusses Google Goes Gemini.
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Transcript:
Daniel Newman: Let’s talk about Google. Let’s talk about Bard or let’s not talk about Bard. February 8th 2024, Bard becomes Gemini. So Bard, which had a mixed beginning, launched that brought some ire, but eventually seemingly turned around and Google caught up and I was impressed with a lot of work they did with Vertex and in the cloud and, of course, the models, but a few, what, about a month and a half, two months back, Pat, they came out with Gemini. They came out with a big … Oh, good, Jesse Coulter, Ram D. said Pat has a few minutes. She agreed.
Basically, it was like a rebirth, rebrand, and that, of course, got met with some scrutiny because they highlight sizzle reel was done in a way that they wanted everybody wanted to throw a fit about, but I saw right through that. That was fine. What’s really happening here, Pat, is Google’s moving on to the next model of Google. You’re talking about a multi-decade mass investment between with Brain and all the things that Google has been doing. DeepMind. This company is far along. While OpenAI has gotten a lot of the acclaim, Google has some serious muscle here to offer.
Now, Bard has basically become Gemini, and now Gemini Advanced is the new cool. Some people might compare it to the GPT-4 Turbo or whatever you want to call it. This is the Google version of that. Now, they’re offering this to be it can be your personal tutor, your assistant, it can help you ideation, creating content. By the way, it costs, what, 20 bucks a month to get access to this. So there’s the free product, which is Bard became Gemini. Now there’s Gemini Advanced, which is the 4.0 Turbo, which is the paid thing that people can use on their mobile device and it’s available now, Pat.
Also though, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, came out and talked a little bit about where this all is heading. By the way, I don’t know if you know this, Pat, but since it’s public information on Twitter, I’ll just go ahead and share it. I am a Gemini and I was born on May 26th. I appreciated Google considering my personal experiences in life and naming their product after my birthday. When you have the number two analyst, according to some list somewhere, you got to think about them when you’re naming your products, but here’s the thing is this is going to evolve into another area, Pat, that I think is really important.
Two areas. One, workspace. Microsoft rules the roost here for activities. Let’s be very clear, but actually, I pervasively use Google Docs, Google Drive or not Drive. What do they call it now? It’s not Drive anymore or is still Drive? I don’t know, but I use Docs, I use Sheets, I use the presentations tool. Workspace, Pat, the ability to put Duet AI into Workspace is going to make it a more compelling product. Now, of course, Copilot is going to be the counter to that and say, “Are people going to leave?” I don’t know, Pat, but I think it’s a growing business. I think this is a chance for Google to differentiate with Workspace.
Then of course, Duet AI becomes Gemini. So that’s the updated name. So it’s Gemini for Workspace and it’s going to be Gemini is basically Duet AI. So it’s going to be a support tool in the cloud for developers to speed up coding, data protection in cyber attacks, and then of course other things that Google Cloud will build around this new Gemini. It’s really a little bit of a branding exercise, Pat, and it’s really the announcement of its next LLM. Now available 20 bucks a month, come get some. I’ll let you try it first for pay. You tell me how it goes and then I’ll pay for it.
Patrick Moorhead: Dan, that was a great rundown, basically everything I was planning on saying.
Daniel Newman: That’s fine. When you let me go first, you know you’re screwed.
Patrick Moorhead: Well, here’s the thing is that it’s not … I haven’t used it, and quite frankly, very few people in the press have used it. If you remember the previous two versions of Bard got pretty much panned and shot down, not necessarily what it could do, but how the demos were taken and they were presented to folks. So Google is going to be a player in Generative AI 110%. The only question is how much of that AI goodness and consumer love will be taken by either Apple or Microsoft.
My back end for productivity is Workspace as well, but my front end is very much, very much Microsoft at this point. I haven’t found a graceful way to do it. In fact, you and I were both working on a presentation. It lost its fidelity. It was a PowerPoint presentation being edited inside of slides. It lost its fidelity and there were some font challenges and you just can’t have that. Very successful in spreadsheets and also Word and stuff like that, but anyways, I just don’t feel like there’s anything definitive coming out of Gemini other than the paid version. The advanced version is going to be better than Bard, which is now called Gemini, and that’s it. That’s all I can add. That’s all I know right now.
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
