Google’s new features in Search, Meet and more escalate the AI war

Google has announced a new wave of AI features, expanding the technology’s reach to online shopping, video conferences and even its ubiquitous search engine, which is getting a mode that relies entirely on chatbots rather than web links.

The new “AI mode” for Google search is currently live in the US only, and is designed to engage users in conversation to answer their queries. It appears on browsers and in the Google app, and will automatically perform multiple web searches to speak confidently on any topic. It can even be given follow-up questions, or be prompted with images, videos or screenshots.

After decades of dominance, Google’s search empire is increasingly under threat from startups such as OpenAI and Perplexity.Credit: Getty Images

Meanwhile, shopping in AI Mode will allow bots to go through checkout on your behalf and can apply products to your own photos for a preview of how new clothes will look.

Other features, the majority of which are only available to Google’s paying subscribers, include live language translations in Meet calls, personalised smart replies in Gmail, and a Deep Think mode for the Gemini chatbot that can reason to break down complex tasks. In the future, Google plans to roll out expanded AI powers to its Chrome web browser, so the chatbot could gain a holistic understanding of the projects you’re working on.

“More intelligence is available, for everyone, everywhere. And the world is responding, adopting AI faster than ever before,” said chief executive Sundar Pichai in announcing the updates overnight at the Google I/O developer conference.

“What all this progress means is that we’re in a new phase of the AI platform shift where decades of research are now becoming reality for people, businesses and communities all over the world.”

The new products come at a time when the search giant is under unprecedented threat from AI start-ups as well as old rivals including Microsoft and Apple.

US-based OpenAI and Perplexity are fast moving into Google’s turf off the back of rapidly improving generative AI. And Apple, which said last week it is seeing Google searches on iPhones drop for the first time, is expected to make some major AI announcements of its own at its development conference next month.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Apple was planning to allow outsiders to build AI features based on the large language models that the company uses for Apple Intelligence, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Apple has been bedevilled by AI. Credit: Bloomberg

The move is part of a broader attempt to become a leader in generative AI; a field that has bedevilled Apple. The company launched the Apple Intelligence platform last year in a bid to catch up with rivals. But the initial features haven’t been widely used, and other AI platforms remain more powerful. The bet is that expanding the technology to developers will lead to more compelling uses for it.

Apple Intelligence already powers iOS and macOS features such as notification summaries, text editing and basic image creation. But the new approach would let developers integrate the underlying technology into specific features or across their full apps. The plan could echo the early success of the App Store, and turn Apple’s operating systems into the largest software platforms for AI.

A spokesperson for Cupertino, California-based Apple declined to comment.

The new plan for developers is expected to be one of the highlights of the developers conference, better known as WWDC. But the biggest announcement will likely be overhauled versions of the iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems, part of a project dubbed “Solarium”. The idea is to make the interfaces more unified and cohesive. The new approach will be largely reminiscent of visionOS, the operating system on the Vision Pro headset.

Yet while Google and Apple go head-to-head on AI, the two giants also face extraordinary regulatory scrutiny.

A US federal judge has determined that Google has an illegal monopoly in search, and is mulling what penalties to impose, with one mooted option being the forced sale of the Chrome web browser. Yet with roughly 90 per cent of the search market, and the latest raft of AI features touching every corner of the company’s business, wrestling away Google’s hold on the ecosystem could be next to impossible.

Meanwhile in a separate matter, a US judge ruled last month that Apple must allow developers to steer customers to the web to complete purchases, bypassing the company’s revenue sharing system. Which means that a surge in new apps, powered by expanded access to the iPhone’s on-device AI, may not result in as big a financial benefit as Apple hopes.

With Bloomberg

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