During Google I/O 2023, the company announced several new impressive ventures into AI built for productivity. Each of these new Google projects is available in public preview, though you need to sign up for the AI Labs first. Here’s how to do that.
What AI projects were announced?
With a heavy hand on AI advancements, Google made three announcements having to do with brand-new projects. Each uses Google’s AI platform to, in effect, make your life a little bit easier. By providing context, creative ideas, and even pulling a lot of the weight for the user, these AI incorporations have the potential to be pretty helpful.
First off, the company showed off Google Search with AI. The approach felt familiar to what Microsoft has done with Bing, but a little more fleshed out and streamlined. When entering a search query, Google will display a new AI “Snapshot,” which gives context about the content you’re looking for along with a couple of useful links and images. This snapshot can be though of as an overview.
Below that, users can use the conversational mode in Search to narrow down results in a more natural way.
SGE (Search Generative Experience) brings the power of generative AI directly into Google Search. The new Search experience helps you quickly find and make sense of information. As you search, you can get the gist of a topic with AI-powered overviews, pointers to explore more, and ways to naturally follow up.
The second array of AI features is boiled down under one title – Duet AI. Duet AI is built into Google’s Workspace apps, like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet. With that, a new “Sidekick” panel will appear in each of these products. That panel will allow you to enter natural queries and sort of explain what you want to see from your project.
For instance, if you describe what the Sheet is for to the generative AI model, it’ll go so far as to create a template you can work off of, and in truth, those generated templates look so much better than what I could come up with. Slides go even further and feature generated images for each slide in a presentation, depending on what you ask it to do. In Gmail, you can converse with the AI model to have it write you an email to a company asking for a refund, and in the demo shown off, it seemed to be able to write a very convincing email.
Lastly, Google announced Project Tailwind, which is a student-aimed AI notebook that helps users study based on their own notes. By finding sources and references based on the subjects written about in your notes, you can expand so much further in your studying to get a much broader – or more focused – view of your material.
Notetakers can also ask questions about the context and get deeper information, along with sources so that the information is more likely to be reliable.
Another project that wasn’t announced at I/O 2023 but exists in preview is MusicLM. The project relies on text prompts to develop music. The more detailed the prompt, the more intricate the generated music becomes.
How to sign up for Google’s AI Labs
Each of these previews is under Google’s “Labs” umbrella. Essentially, users can use the tools but they aren’t finalized in any way. Beyond that, using them helps Google make them better. That being said, if you are able to start using these AI features, be aware of the kind of data you enter. That especially applies to Duet AI and Google’s Generative Search.
- Head to labs.withgoogle.com on your phone or computer.
- Find the AI projects you’re interested in and hit either Learn more or Join waitlist.
- Note: All of these projects are under a waitlist system with no promises as to whether or not you’ll be accepted.
- Sign in when prompted and follow the steps for each Ai project.
Note: Alternatively, you can visit the updated Google app and tap the beaker icon at the top.
Once you get accepted, you’ll likely see an email or notification letting you know and giving you instructions on what to do next.
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