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OpenAI shuts down election influence operation that used ChatGPT

OpenAI has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation that was generating content about the U.S. presidential election, according to a blog post on Friday. The company says the operation created AI-generated articles and social media posts, though it doesn’t seem that it reached much of an audience.

This is not the first time OpenAI has banned accounts linked to state-affiliated actors using ChatGPT maliciously. In May the company disrupted five campaigns using ChatGPT to manipulate public opinion.

These episodes are reminiscent of state actors using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to attempt to influence previous election cycles. Now similar groups (or perhaps the same ones) are using generative AI to flood social channels with misinformation. Similar to social media companies, OpenAI seems to be adopting a whack-a-mole approach, banning accounts associated with these efforts as they come up.

OpenAI says its investigation of this cluster of accounts benefited from a Microsoft Threat Intelligence report published last week, which identified the group (which it calls Storm-2035) as part of a broader campaign to influence U.S. elections operating since 2020.

Microsoft said Storm-2035 is an Iranian network with multiple sites imitating news outlets and “actively engaging US voter groups on opposing ends of the political spectrum with polarizing messaging on issues such as the US presidential candidates, LGBTQ rights, and the Israel-Hamas conflict.” The playbook, as it has proven to be in other operations, is not necessarily to promote one policy or another but to sow dissent and conflict.

OpenAI identified five website fronts for Storm-2035, presenting as both progressive and conservative news outlets with convincing domain names like “evenpolitics.com.” The group used ChatGPT to draft several long-form articles, including one alleging that “X censors Trump’s tweets,” which Elon Musk’s platform certainly has not done (if anything, Musk is encouraging former president Donald Trump to engage more on X).

An example of a fake news outlet running ChatGPT-generated content.Image Credits: OpenAI

On social media, OpenAI identified a dozen X accounts and one Instagram account controlled by this operation. The company says ChatGPT was used to rewrite various political comments, which were then posted on these platforms. One of these tweets falsely, and confusingly, alleged that Kamala Harris attributes “increased immigration costs” to climate change, followed by “#DumpKamala.”

OpenAI says it did not see evidence that Storm-2035’s articles were shared widely and noted a majority of its social media posts received few to no likes, shares, or comments. This is often the case with these operations, which are quick and cheap to spin up using AI tools like ChatGPT. Expect to see many more notices like this as the election approaches and partisan bickering online intensifies.

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AI Apps Artificial Intelligence Communication and Connectivity Google

Google is bringing AI overviews to India, Brazil, Japan, UK, Indonesia and Mexico

After bringing AI overviews to the U.S., Google is expanding the AI-powered search summaries to six more countries: India, Brazil, Japan, the U.K., Indonesia and Mexico. These markets will also get local language support for AI overviews.

The search giant is rethinking how it displays source material links, as well. It’s adding a view on the upper right-hand side showing icons of sites above the AI overview on both desktop and mobile. Users can tap on those icons to go to links cited in an AI overview and read more on the topic.

Image Credits: Google

Additionally, the company is testing a way to display relevant links within the text of AI overviews. Google said that it wants to drive more traffic to external sites.

“With AI Overviews, we’re seeing that people have been visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And when people click from search result pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality for websites — meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the sites they visit,” the company said in a blog post.

AI-powered tools have been criticized for not prominently displaying links to sources while displaying summaries. News outlets have singled out search tools such as Perplexity AI, accusing it of plagiarism and unethical web scraping. Earlier this month, Perplexity’s CBO Dmitry Shevelenko told TechCrunch that a “double-digit percentage” of visitors are clicking on external links. Google has yet to publicly release any number about how much traffic its AI-powered search results are driving.

India focus

Google has added some India-focused features to AI overviews with this roll out. The company had previously tested a toggle to let users toggle between Hindi and English results without leaving the page. That feature will also be part of AI overviews.

Video Credits: Google

The company will also let users in India hear responses generated by tapping the “Listen” button. The company mentioned that Indian users listen to AI overview responses more often than users in other countries.

In our early testing, we found that some queries in Hindi didn’t work if we switched sentence structure or words. We have asked Google more about its approach for answering questions in Hindi. We’ll update the story if we hear back.

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AI Communication and Connectivity Startups

EliseAI lands $75M for chatbots that help property managers deal with renters

EliseAI, a company developing a suite of AI-powered property management tools for landlords, has raised $75 million in a Series D round that values the startup at $1 billion.

EliseAI is the brainchild of co-founder and CEO Minna Song, who met the company’s second co-founder, Tony Stoyanov, while the two were undergraduate students at Cambridge. After graduating, Song moved to New York City, where she took a job as an administrative assistant at a residential real estate firm.

At the firm, Song saw how inefficiencies in the rental and leasing industry — particularly inefficiencies around messaging current and prospective tenants — were contributing to management teams’ exhaustion and burnout, she says.

“Recognizing this challenge, Stoyanov and I began creating AI software to automate communication,” Song told TechCrunch, “and we founded EliseAI in 2017.”

Today, EliseAI employs an army of chatbots to text with, email and respond to calls from renters about things such as apartment tours, maintenance requests, lease renewals and delinquencies. Song says the chatbots are trained on renters’ questions and conversations — both people looking to lease apartments and current residents — and are designed to hand off requests to humans automatically where necessary.

Image Credits: EliseAI

“We only use data that we generated internally,” Song said. “We do not buy or use external data. This gives us control over the data we use.”

As a generally privacy-conscious person, I would be wary of texting chatbots like EliseAI’s any personal information — and volunteering chats for the company’s AI training. So I asked Song about EliseAI’s data retention policies. She said that the company lets users request that their data be deleted, opt out of providing their info for training and, in compliance with laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act, receive a copy of any data that EliseAI has on them.

“We do not sell, re-license or otherwise share any consumer data for any purpose,” Song added. “Consumer data is the exclusive property of our relevant customer — a property manager or owner — and we only use that data for limited purposes as expressly permitted by our customer contracts, our privacy policy and applicable law.”

Some reviews of EliseAI’s chatbots are critical and suggest that nuance isn’t the AI’s strong suit. According to one reviewer, the chatbots — which don’t clearly identify themselves as AI — sometimes fail to loop in managers and agents when they should, and book tours of properties without key info such as a move-in date or phone number.

Song, however, asserts that EliseAI’s chatbots “continuously improve their ability to anticipate renter needs,” and on average boost lease tour bookings by 125% while decreasing overdue payments by 50%, according to the company’s internal data.

Image Credits: EliseAI

“Our technology is designed for multifamily and single-family rental owners, operators and third-party property management companies to enhance operational efficiency, reduce tech stacks and costs associated with single-point solutions, increase occupancy, reduce delinquent payments and improve the renter experience,” Song said.

In addition to the chatbots, EliseAI offers a dashboard where property managers can keep tabs on prospects’ and residents’ requests (e.g. work orders), generate reports on operations and track the progress of renewals. The dashboard comes free with any of EliseAI’s AI products, which the company offers as modules priced according to a software-as-a-service model.

EliseAI competes with vendors including Colleen AI, Funnel, Knock and LeaseHawk. Song says that the company has more than 350 customers, including 70% of the top 50 rental housing operators in the U.S.

“We did not pursue hyper-growth in headcount, instead focusing on controlled hiring and sustainable burn management while continuously investing strategically in revenue growth,” Song said. “We have observed that funding has remained strong for companies like EliseAI that effectively address enduring enterprise challenges such as operational efficiency, particularly in foundational markets like housing, which are always in demand.”

With another successful funding round under its belt, EliseAI, which employs around 150 full-time employees out of its NYC offices, plans to further expand into a rather unexpected market: healthcare. Song thinks that much of the company’s tech stack can be adapted to serve health clinics’ administrative needs, like appointment scheduling and billing and payments.

Indeed, EliseAI launched a healthcare solution in 2023 called HealthAI, and Song says that several providers are already using it.

Image Credits: EliseAI

It’s a crowded market, though; EliseAI will have to compete against startups like Hyro, which similarly use AI to handle text and voice conversations between healthcare organizations and their patients.

Sapphire Ventures led the round with participation from Point72 Private Investments, Divco West, Navitas Capital and Koch Real Estate Investments. Bringing EliseAI’s total raised to $140 million, the new capital will be put toward hiring, AI R&D, product development and supporting EliseAI’s go-to-market efforts, Song said.

“Our primary focus was bringing in an excellent partner for the business; that is why we chose Sapphire,” Song added. Sapphire partner Cathy Gao will be joining EliseAI’s board of directors.

“While EliseAI is currently the most widely adopted AI platform in this space, the residential real estate market is still in the early stages of leveraging AI to its potential,” Gao said in a statement. “I believe the company is well-positioned to lead the charge in housing and deliver similar results in new verticals like healthcare.”

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AI Apps Artificial Intelligence Communication and Connectivity Gadgets Google

Made by Google 2024: A few AI features you might’ve missed

Google’s annual Made by Google hardware event was held earlier Tuesday, and because the company announced so much stuff, a lot got lost in the shuffle. We rounded up some of the more intriguing AI-related announcements that didn’t get a ton of play, like the image-generating Pixel Studio and Pixel Screenshots, which helps save and organize info in screenshots.

Call Notes summarizes your conversations

For short-term-memory-challenged folks like this writer, Call Notes could be a useful feature.

Available on the Pixel 9 family of devices, Call Notes saves a summary of your conversation following a call. The details — and a transcript — are saved to your phone’s call log.

Image Credits: Google

Now if that sounds like a potential privacy nightmare, you’re not wrong. Google says that Call Notes runs fully on-device and notifies all people on the call when recording is in progress — but we’ll have to let the security experts weigh in.

Pixel Studio is a new image-generating app

Pixel Studio, exclusive to the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, is an image-generating app powered both by an on-device generative AI model and Google’s Imagen 3 model running in the cloud. Pixel Studio lets you enter prompts to generate whatever creatively moves you, and add stickers and make edits and changes after the fact.

Image Credits: Google

Creations from Pixel Studio — which requires a steady internet connection to use, despite the on-device component — can be shared with contacts via Google Messages.

Google PR told my colleague Ivan Mehta that Pixel Studio can’t generate human faces yet, presumably because of Gemini’s unfortunate slip-ups earlier this year. But the spokesperson didn’t say whether there were any other safeguards to prevent the app from generating potentially harmful images.

Pixel Screenshots are searchable

If you’re like me, you screenshot things liberally — tickets, QR codes, boarding passes and what have you — for easy access later. But screenshots aren’t exactly search-friendly. And that makes them a real pain in the rear end when you’re trying to find something specific.

Fortunately for soon-to-be Pixel 9 owners, there’s Pixel Screenshots, a new app that uses AI to analyze the content of screenshots, including any captured text, people and objects. Google Photos already did this — but Pixel Screenshots works locally.

Google gives this colorful example: “Let’s say your friend, who loves squirrels, has a birthday coming up. You may browse Google Chrome for a gift for them, screenshotting squirrel shirts, squirrel coasters and everything else squirrel-related you think they might like. Pixel Screenshots will analyze the content of all those images and make the information searchable for you in the app. So all you’ll need to do is open the app and search for ‘squirrel,’ and these results will pop up. Even better, it will include links to where you found everything and a summary of what you’re looking at with relevant information.”

Pixel Screenshots will also helpfully search for things like door codes and addresses across photos.

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AI ChatGPT Communication and Connectivity Google

Gemini Live first look: Better than talking to Siri, but worse than I’d like

Google launched Gemini Live during its Made by Google event Tuesday. The feature allows you to have a semi-natural spoken conversation, not typed out, with an AI chatbot powered by Google’s latest large language model. TechCrunch was there to test it out firsthand.

Gemini Live is Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, ChatGPT’s nearly identical feature that’s current in a limited alpha test. While OpenAI beat Google to the punch by demoing the feature first, Google is the first to roll out the finalized feature.

In my experience, these low latency, verbal features feel much more natural than texting with ChatGPT, or even talking with Siri or Alexa. I found that Gemini Live responded to questions in less than two seconds, and was able to pivot fairly quickly when interrupted. Gemini Live is not perfect, but it’s the best way to use your phone hands-free that I’ve seen yet.

How Gemini Live works

Before speaking with Gemini Live, the feature lets you choose from 10 voices, compared to just three voices from OpenAI. Google worked with voice actors to create each one. I appreciated the variety there, and found each one to sound very humanlike.

In one example, a Google product manager verbally asked Gemini Live to find family-friendly wineries near Mountain View with outdoor areas and playgrounds nearby, so that kids could potentially come along. That’s a far more complicated task than I’d ask Siri — or Google Search, frankly — but Gemini successfully recommended a spot that met the criteria: Cooper-Garrod Vineyards in Saratoga.

That said, Gemini Live leaves something to be desired. It seemed to hallucinate a nearby playground called Henry Elementary School Playground that is supposedly “10 minutes away” from that vineyard. There are other playgrounds nearby in Saratoga, but the nearest Henry Elementary School is more than a two-hour drive from there. There’s a Henry Ford Elementary School in Redwood City, but it’s 30 minutes away.

Google liked to show off how users can interrupt Gemini Live mid-sentence, and the AI will quickly pivot. The company says this allows users to control the conversation. In practice, this feature doesn’t work perfectly. Sometimes Google’s project managers and Gemini Live were talking over each other, and the AI didn’t seem to pick up on what was said.

Notably, Google is not allowing Gemini Live to sing or mimic any voices outside of the 10 it provides, according to product manager Leland Rechis. The company is likely doing this to avoid run-ins with copyright law. Further, Rechis said Google is not focused on getting Gemini Live to understand emotional intonation in a user’s voice — something OpenAI touted during its demo.

Overall, the feature seems like a great way to dive deeply into a subject more naturally than you would with simple Google Search. Google notes that Gemini Live is a step along the way to Project Astra, the fully multimodal AI model the company debuted during Google I/O. For now, Gemini Live is just capable of voice conversations; however, in the future Google wants to add real-time video understanding.

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AI Artificial Intelligence Communication and Connectivity Google Hardware

Made by Google 2024: All of Google’s reveals, from the Pixel 9 lineup to Gemini AI’s addition to everything

The Made by Google 2024 event has reached an end, after a busy rumor mill preceding the event, we have the full range of announcements and reveals from Google’s biggest hardware event of the year. Notably, this year’s edition is preceding Apple’s typical September iPhone reveal, with a focus on AI that anyone watching any tech event in the past couple years is well familiar with.

The event is done by the time you’re reading this, but you can catch up on the livestream archive right here, which kicked off at 10 a.m. PT. Let’s dive right into what the Google Pixel 9 lineup looks like, how Google’s Gemini AI will be incorporated in the devices, and other updates for the Nest, Pixel Watch and Pixel Buds.

Gemini Live’s stage demo was indeed live

Live demos aren’t always a guarantee, but Google kicked off its event with the promise of many live demonstrations of Gemini AI’s new capabilities that are launching Tuesday. And while the first demo had a rocky start in trying to respond to a prompt about Sabrina Carpenter, the subsequent demos on writing emails, building playlists and brainstorming ideas went more smoothly.

Gemini Live launches for Android

Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode is going public — if you’re a Google One AI Premium subscriber. Gemini Live allows for conversational back-and-forths between users and the AI, reacting more realistically to human speech and ideally responding more like a human in turn. Google and OpenAI have both demoed their services over the past few months, though Gemini may have an advantage as our AI expert Kyle Wiggers highlights:

“The architecture of the generative AI model underpinning Live, Gemini 1.5 Pro, has a longer-than-average ‘context window,’ meaning it can take in and reason over a lot of data — theoretically hours of back-and-forth conversations — before crafting a response.”

The Pixel 9 line gets better cameras and a Gemini AI infusion

Image Credits: Google

There are now three phones in the standard Pixel 9 lineup, along with the addition of the Pixel 9 Fold Pro (more on that later). The Pixel 9 and 9 Pro are distinguished by a higher resolution for the latter, while the 9 Pro XL comes in at a bigger size (a 6.8-inch display vs. 6.3 inches), and each comes with Gemini baked-in as the default assistant.

Google already announced the end of Assistant as the default virtual helper for its phones, and it comes alongside a number of other camera and hardware upgrades, which you can roll through in detail right here.

Google’s foldable sequel: The Pixel 9 Pro Fold

Image Credits: Google

Google’s second foldable phone doesn’t reinvent the screen — it just makes it slightly bigger with an 8-inch display when fully opened. It’s thinner, with a larger external display and camera upgrades in line with the rest of the Pixel 9 lineup. It’ll still carry a steep price tag of $1,799, and yes, in case you thought we forgot, it of course comes with Gemini as its assistant. Unfurl the full Fold rundown here.

Image Credits: Google

After launching the Magic Editor last year, an AI-powered tool for editing photos, Google announced a series of updates to its editing suite that will come to the Pixel 9 line of phones. Its screenshot app will let screenshots be searched through, Pixel Studio will allow AI-generated images to be made on the devices and the auto framing feature will recompose images to put the subject in focus. Get the rundown on all the other AI additions coming right here.

Google’s Pixel Watch 3 doubles your options

Image Credits: Google

The Pixel Watch previously was only available in a 41 mm size, but this year, the lineup includes a 45 mm model. Both boast a larger display, thanks to the smaller bezels, and twice the brightness. You can get the full rundown here, with the requisite inclusion of AI, though pricing and availability have yet to be announced.

Pixel Watch 3 adds ‘loss of pulse’ detection feature

ScreenshotImage Credits: Google

Google’s biggest health-focused announcement was around a “loss of pulse” detection feature for the Pixel Watch, which can detect when the heart is “not beating in life sustaining fashion” as a result of events like cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, overdoses and so on. If the Pixel Watch detects that event, a call will be placed with medical services providing the user’s location. As with any new health feature, there’s a lot of nuance to be had, and you can get a more in-depth breakdown here.

Pixel Buds Pro 2, infused with Gemini

Image Credits: Google

Headphones are a natural fit for virtual assistants, and Google’s hoping to make the Pixel Buds Pro 2 compelling with the addition of Gemini Live, the aforementioned upgrade that makes it more compatible with natural language. They also come with a Tensor A1 chip, a first for Google’s headphones, which enabled a 27% reduction in size. Get a more detailed rundown on the $229 Pixel Buds Pro 2 here.

Trick kids into actually smiling for photos with Made You Look

Fussy kids make for lousy photos, and to help frazzled families, Google’s Made You Look feature uses a foldable screen’s front-facing camera to distract or entertain a photo’s subject. Initially it will just show something visually compelling, but Google teased that licensed characters like Joy from “Inside Out” will be added in future updates.

Pixel Weather makes its debut

Image Credits: Google

This year’s new Pixel lineup is getting its own weather app, with — you guessed it — AI capabilities. Google claims that the app will be able to be customized to only show the weather information users want to see, in addition to AI weather reports and the standard suite of forecasts and features you’d expect from a weather app. Get more on the first look at the app here.

Nest Thermostats get a long-awaited update

Image Credits: Google Nest

Announced ahead of Made by Google 2024, Nest’s Learning Thermostat is getting its first refresh in nine years, following a difficult past couple years for Nest and the entire smart home category. The pitch for the new Nest is tied to, you guessed it, Gemini AI. Google Assistant will still be the name for the company’s smart home products’ assistants, but Gemini will be used to power more natural language interactions.

Get the full rundown on the new $280 Nest, including its revamped hardware, here.

RIP Chromecast, hello Google TV Streamer

Image Credits: Google / Google

The Chromecast line is officially dead, with its 11-year run ending with the announcement of the Google TV streamer, also ahead of Made by Google. The TV Streamer does a bit more than just stream though, with the ability to act as a smart home hub for Google Home and Matter-powered devices. And, like the Nest, it will stick with Assistant, though some Gemini-powered upgrades are promised. Get the full rundown on the $100 hub here.

Recap Made by Google with the TechCrunch Minute

If you’ve come this far and want to dive even deeper into today’s reveals, check out the latest episode of the TechCrunch Minute below.

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AI Apps Artificial Intelligence Communication and Connectivity Google

Google adds new AI-powered features for photo editing and image generation

At Made by Google 2024 on Tuesday, the company launched its new Pixel 9 series of phones. These devices have a ton of AI-powered features apart from having Gemini as the default assistant.

The company is adding features for photo editing, plus new apps for storing and searching through screenshots on-device and an AI-powered studio for image generation.

Add Me lets the person taking a group photo be a part of it. The company uses a combination of AR and different machine-learning models, and asks the photographer to trade places with someone after taking the first photo. The phone will guide the second person to reset the image and AI models will realign both frames to create a photo with all folks in one frame.

The company launched the Magic Editor feature last year with Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, which had a Magic Eraser function to remove unwanted objects or people. Google is now adding two new features to Magic Editor with the Pixel 9 series.

The first feature is called auto framing, which will recompose an image to place objects or people in the photo in focus. Google says Magic Editor will generate a few options for users to choose from. The autoframing feature can also use generative AI to expand the photo. Google says that with the second feature, people can type in the kind of background they want to see in the photo and AI will generate it for them.

New screenshots and studio apps

Google is adding new screenshots and Pixel Studio apps to the new Pixel 9 series of phones. The screenshot app will store screenshots taken on the device and also lets people search for information through them, such as Wi-Fi details of a vacation home, for example.

Notably, Google Photos also has a search feature that lets people look for information such as their license plate or passport number. However, the new screenshot app works locally.

The company is also adding a new Pixel Studio app to create AI-powered images on the device. Google notes that the new apps utilize an on-device diffusion model and Google’s on-cloud models. Users can type in any prompt to generate an image and then use the in-app option to change the style. Google says it cannot generate human faces yet — presumably because of Gemini slipping up in terms of historical accuracy earlier this year — but didn’t say whether there are any other limitations to generating potentially harmful images.

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AI Communication and Connectivity Google Hardware

Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2 bring Gemini to your ears

The age of the generative AI gadget has been disappointing at best. Devices like Humane’s AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 were disappointments at launch, falling victim to their own respective hype cycles. Generative AI has a future on consumer hardware, but you’d be forgiven for believing otherwise. The technology is having its moment on handsets, and headphones are a good natural extension of that push. Announced at Tuesday’s Made By Google Event, the Pixel Buds Pro 2 are an attempt to take that next step.

The earbuds arrive a little over two years after the company released the first-generation product. As with all of the hardware unveiled at Tuesday’s event, Google is placing its generative AI experience — specifically Gemini Live’s conversational capabilities — front and center.

“With the new Gemini Live in your earbuds, you can have a real back-and-forth conversation with an AI assistant,” the company told TechCrunch. “It feels like you’re talking to a close confidante, and it even works when your phone is in your pocket. You can ask different types of questions, with more open-ended queries, more walk-and-talks and longer sessions that are more contemplative. It’s like having a co-worker that’s always available to brainstorm or talk through an idea together.”

The uneasiness of the “close confidante” bit aside, the new Pixel Buds may be the realization of something Google and various other companies have been working toward for years. A lack of natural language conversational capacity has been a roadblock to wider smart assistant adoption. Companies have been overpromising and underdelivering on that front for a decade now.

GoogleImage Credits: Google

One thing LLM-based neural networks do extraordinarily well is simulate conversation, so Gemini Live is a logical next step here. Whether or not most users will be comfortable with “walk-and-talks and longer sessions that are more contemplative,” however, is probably a question for a sociologist.

The arrival of Gemini Live on the Buds coincides with Google making Gemini the default assistant on the new Pixel 9 line. It’s powered in part by the earbuds’ Tensor A1 chip, which finds Google applying its mobile-chip-making knowhow to the Pixel Buds line for the first time.

Google says the new chip also made it possible to reduce the Buds’ size by 27%, with faster processing speeds and battery life bumped up to a stated 12 hours on the Buds and 48 hours combined with the charging case. The Buds Pro 2 also support Google’s Find My Device, so you can locate lost ones on a map or have them and the charging case ring out if they’re buried under a pile of clothes in your apartment.

The news Silent Seal passive noise canceling, coupled with improvements to the active noise canceling capabilities “cancel up to twice as much noise as before,” per Google. The $229 Buds start shipping September 26.

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AI Communication and Connectivity Gadgets Google Hardware

Google Gemini is the Pixel 9’s default assistant

Tuesday’s Made by Google event cemented Gemini’s place as the Pixel’s default assistant. The company had previously allowed users to opt in to replace Google Assistant with the generative AI platform, and now the newly announced Pixel 9 phones are the first devices to ship that way by default.

Google notes that if users are unsatisfied with a hallucination-prone platform that might not yet be fully baked, they can roll their new handset back to what the company has taken to calling its “legacy assistant.” The title isn’t entirely apt, however. Google recently reconfirmed that Assistant will live on as part of its Nest/Home operations.

That side of Google’s hardware division recently received its own shot in the arm, courtesy of an overdue update to the Nest Learning Thermostat, the Chromecast-replacing Google TV Streamer and new AI capabilities under the hood.

Gemini currently has both the higher ceiling and the lower floor. The last few generations of neural networks have proven to be extremely impressive for a wide range of tasks, from natural language conversations to image generation. The black-box model is still prone to hiccups, however, leading some to question whether the current hype cycle may has made companies like Google overly aggressive in rolling out their solutions.

Google has already showcased a number of extremely impressive AI tools, particularly on the imaging side, including features like Magic Eraser and the new Add Me editing feature. The Pixel 9’s arrival marks additional AI features, including the Gemini 1.5 Pro-powered Live, which brings more human-like conversations to the handset.

Following the new Pixels’ arrival, Google is no doubt eyeing a broader Android-wide Gemini assistant. That adoption will come down to Google’s update timeframe and the device-makers themselves. Some, like Samsung, have been working on their own take on generative AI, though there’s no evidence that offerings like Galaxy AI have a hope of eclipsing Gemini in a meaningful way.

Also key to the timeline is whether or not Google intends to continue supporting the “legacy” Assistant indefinitely on mobile devices — and whether lower-end devices will be up to the task of adopting Gemini.

Pixel 9 devices start shipping August 22.

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AI Apps Communication and Connectivity Google

Gemini Live, Google’s answer to ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode, launches

Gemini Live, Google’s answer to the recently launched (in limited alpha) Advanced Voice Mode for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is rolling out on Tuesday, months after being announced at Google’s I/O 2024 developer conference. It was announced at Google’s Made by Google 2024 event.

Gemini Live lets users have “in-depth” voice chats with Gemini, Google’s generative AI-powered chatbot, on their smartphones. Thanks to an enhanced speech engine that delivers what Google claims is more consistent, emotionally expressive and realistic multi-turn dialogue, people can interrupt Gemini while the chatbot’s speaking to ask follow-up questions, and it’ll adapt to their speech patterns in real time.

Here’s how Google describes it in a blog post: “With Gemini Live [via the Gemini app], you can talk to Gemini and choose from [10 new] natural-sounding voices it can respond with. You can even speak at your own pace or interrupt mid-response with clarifying questions, just like you would in any conversation.”

Gemini Live is hands-free if you want it to be. You can keep speaking with the Gemini app in the background or when your phone’s locked, and conversations can be paused and resumed at any time.

So how might this be useful? Google gives the example of rehearsing for a job interview — a bit of an ironic scenario, but OK. Gemini Live can practice with you, Google says, giving speaking tips and suggesting skills to highlight when speaking with a hiring manager (or AI, as the case may be).

One advantage Gemini Live might have over ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode is a better memory. The architecture of the generative AI model underpinning Live, Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Flash, have a longer-than-average “context window,” meaning they can take in and reason over a lot of data — theoretically hours of back-and-forth conversations — before crafting a response.

“Live uses our Gemini Advanced models that we have adapted to be more conversational,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch via email. “The model’s large context window is utilized when users have long conversations with Live.”

We’ll have to see how well this all works in practice, of course. If OpenAI’s setbacks with Advanced Voice Mode are any indication, rarely do demos translate seamlessly to the real world.

Image Credits: Google

On that subject, Gemini Live doesn’t have one of the capabilities Google showcased at I/O just yet: multimodal input. Back in May, Google released pre-recorded videos showing Gemini Live seeing and responding to users’ surroundings via photos and footage captured by their phones’ cameras, for example naming a part on a broken bicycle or explaining what a portion of code on a computer screen does.

Multimodal input will arrive “later this year,” Google said, declining to provide specifics. Also later this year, Live will expand to additional languages and to iOS via the Google app; it’s only available in English for the time being.

Gemini Live, like Advanced Voice Mode, isn’t free. It’s exclusive to Gemini Advanced, a more sophisticated version of Gemini that’s gated behind the Google One AI Premium Plan, priced at $20 per month.

Other new Gemini features on the way are free, though.

Android users can soon (in the coming weeks) bring up Gemini’s overlay on top of any app they’re using to ask questions about what’s on the screen (a YouTube video, for example) by holding their phone’s power button or saying “Hey Google.” Gemini will be able to generate images (but still not images of people, unfortunately) directly from the overlay — images that can be dragged and dropped into apps like Gmail and Google Messages.

Gemini is also gaining new integrations with Google services (or “extensions,” as the company prefers to call them) both on mobile and the web. In the coming weeks, Gemini will be able to take more actions with Google Calendar, Keep, Tasks, YouTube Music and Utilities, the apps that control on-device features like timers and alarms, media controls, the flashlight, volume, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and so on.

In a blog post, Google gives a few ideas of how people might take advantage. Sounds nifty, assuming it all works reliably:

Ask Gemini to “make a playlist of songs that remind me of the late ’90s.”

Snap a photo of a concert flier and ask Gemini if you’re free that day — and even set a reminder to buy tickets.

Have Gemini dig out a recipe in your Gmail and ask it to add the ingredients to your shopping list in Keep.

Lastly, starting later this week, Gemini will be available on Android tablets.

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