How Google is Enhancing Productivity, Future of Search with AI Tools

Emma Okonji

As technology advances in line with human quest to learn new things that will make them more productive at work, Google has said its largest and most capable family of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, called Gemini, which was introduced in December 2023, will power significant improvements in products used by consumers, businesses, developers and writers.

With Gemini, researchers can carry out comprehensive search for characters and use the Gemini Chart, Google Lens tools to explore detailed information about the character and convert such information to tables for graphic illustrations. It also allows for accurate data verification.

Speaking at a recent virtual AI Workshop for Journalists across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Sierria Leone, organised by Google, the Head, Gemini Communications at Google, Claudine Beaumont, said the master-class tagged, “Beyond Buzzwords: Ways AI Can Help You,” was designed to explore the transformative potential of Generative AI (GAI) for journalists, content creators in enhancing creativity and imagination in journalistic works.

Gemini is a multimodal AI model that can generalise and seamlessly understand, operate across and combine different types of information, including text, images, audio and coding languages. It comes in Gemini 1.0 Pro and Gemini 1.0 Ultra, and it is available across a range of Google products and platforms. It can efficiently run on anything from mobile devices to data centres.  

“Our creative collaborator, Gemini Chart, is powered by Gemini 1.0 Pro, bringing huge improvements in summarising, brainstorming, writing and planning. It is available in more than 40 languages across 170 countries and territories. We have also brought Gemini to pixel devices, powering new features, and enabling developers and enterprise customers around the world have access to Gemini, via Google AI Studio and Vertex AI, enabling organisations to build and rapidly deploy generative AI, using Google’s foundation models, cloud infrastructure and expertise,” Beaumont said.

Beyond Gemini 1.0, Google, which is already thinking about what comes next, unveiled Gemini 1.5 Pro in February this year, which is a new generation of models that deliver a breakthrough in long-context understanding.

“We have been able to significantly increase the amount of information our models can process, running up to one million tokens consistently, achieving the longest text window any large scale foundation can achieve. Tokens, in the context windows, are the building blocks used for processing information,” Beaumont further said.  

Giving details on how AI is powering the future of search, Beaumont said Google launched generative AI in search across Africa in November 2023, allowing people to ask new types of questions in new ways and experiencing the answers in new, richer and more intuitive ways.  

“We live in an increasingly virtual world, so it makes sense to offer people a way to easily search what they see. Al powers our latest search innovation, called Circle to Search, which offers a new way to search on your phone without switching between apps. All you need to do is make a simple gesture. Let’s say you encounter an unfamiliar word in an article. Simply circle, highlight, scribble, or tap on it, and you’ll instantly get the information you need, right where you are. No copying, pasting or switching apps. Circle to Search is now available on Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S24 Series phones,” Beaumont added.