Google made a major announcement yesterday, streamlining all of its AI efforts under a single name — Gemini. This means that Google’s AI chatbot, formerly known as Bard, is now referred to as Gemini, and the tech giant has also introduced its standalone Android app.

But do you recall Google’s announcement last year regarding its plan to imbue Android’s default Assistant with AI capabilities under the service named “Assistant with Bard”? With Bard now rebranded, there might be uncertainty about the fate of the Assistant’s AI services.

In response to this change, Google clarified to Android Authority that Gemini on Android is the experience that Assistant with Bard was meant to provide.

“The vision we shared in October remains the same — to build a true AI assistant that is conversational, multimodal, and helpful,” said a Google spokesperson.

“Now, with the incredible capabilities of Gemini, we can deliver on that vision in an even more profound and meaningful way. The technology allows us to push past the limits of what we could do before (timers, alarms, weather) to help you supercharge your ideas and collaborate directly with Google AI on your phone,” the spokesperson added.

In essence, the functionalities envisioned for “Assistant with Bard” are now fully integrated into Gemini for Android.

Google has already taken the initial steps towards this approach, as Gemini becomes the default Assistant on your Android after downloading the app from the Play Store. You can still switch back to the old Assistant in the settings if you prefer.

But Google is confident in Gemini powering the AI capabilities of Assistant going forward. This means that the “Assistant with Bard” name is now retired for good.

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Google Assistant is currently the best virtual assistant on the market. But Google is aiming to make it even smarter by integrating the generative AI capabilities of Bard, a large language model that can generate and reason with text, voice, and images.

The new assistant, called simply “Assistant with Bard,” will be able to help users with a variety of tasks, including planning trips, finding emails, creating lists, and writing social posts. Users will be able to interact with Assistant with Bard through text, voice, or images.

Assistant with Bard will also be contextually aware, meaning that it will be able to use the input from the sensors in an Android device, such as the camera, voice input, or presence detection, to understand the user’s intent and provide relevant responses. 

For example, on Pixel devices, users can pop up Assistant with Bard on top of a photo to get contextual assistance with personal tasks, such as asking it to write a social caption.

Google says that Assistant with Bard will be integrated with some of the Google services that users already use, such as Gmail and Docs, making it easier to stay on top of the most important things in their lives. 

For example, users can ask Assistant with Bard to “Catch me up on any important emails I missed this week” to get a rundown on the key emails they need to know about.

The company also announced that the Pixel 8 Pro is the first phone to run the company’s foundation AI models directly on the device. This means that the device will be able to run generative AI with up to 150 times more computations than the largest machine learning (ML) model on Pixel 7. This will lead to improved AI experiences on Pixel 8 Pro, such as an improved magic eraser feature that can help users remove large objects and people without smudging their photos.

Assistant with Bard is still in early development, so the company is rolling it out to a limited group of testers to get feedback before releasing it to the public in the next few months. This means that most of us will need to wait a while to use these features.

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(Via)

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