0:01

Today on the AI Daily Brief, everything

0:03

announced at Google I.O. and a look at

0:05

the battle between Google and OpenAI.

0:08

The AI Daily Brief is a daily podcast and

0:10

video about the most important news and discussions in

0:12

AI. To join the conversation, hop

0:14

on the Discord with the link in our show notes. Hello

0:25

friends, one more day of non-traditional formats we're

0:27

just going to be talking about Google I.O.

0:29

and the comparison to OpenAI as that's where

0:31

a ton of conversation is right now. The

0:33

other big obvious story that we will cover

0:36

is Ilya formally leaving OpenAI, so keep your

0:38

ears peeled for that in the next day

0:40

or so. But for now, let's talk about

0:42

Google I.O. Welcome

0:44

back to the AI Daily Brief. Yesterday was

0:46

the main keynote day of Google I.O. This is

0:48

Google's big annual conference where they announce all the

0:51

stuff that they're working on and at the surprise

0:53

of no one AI was even more center stage

0:55

than it was last year. Now the

0:57

timing of this event was no coincidence, or

0:59

more specifically the timing of OpenAI's event just

1:02

before this was no coincidence. It was pretty

1:04

clear then and is definitely clear now that

1:06

OpenAI was trying to front run Google and

1:08

capture excitement and attention before I.O. happened. What

1:11

we're going to do today is talk about

1:13

the difference between these two announcements, who the

1:15

AI Twitter sphere thinks won, but we have

1:17

to start with just everything that Google actually

1:19

announced. This is in no particular

1:21

order other than broadly speaking the biggest most

1:23

discussed things being up top. First

1:26

of all, we got a new version of Gemini. This is called Gemini

1:28

1.5 Flash. The

1:30

team at Google said that this multimodal model was as

1:32

powerful as Gemini 1.5 Pro, but that

1:34

it had been optimized for quote narrow

1:36

high frequency low latency tasks, making it

1:39

better at generating fast responses. They

1:41

also announced that the context window was moving from

1:43

the already industry leading one million up to two

1:45

million in the coming months. Second

1:47

and perhaps most relevant for the demos that

1:50

we saw a couple days ago from OpenAI,

1:52

we got Project Astra. This is their version

1:54

of a personal assistant. On screen

1:56

is the demo video they shared both live and on

1:58

socials. What?

2:01

In that part of the speaker called.

2:05

That. Is the tweeter. It produces

2:07

high frequency sounds. The. Verge

2:09

Rights project. Astra is powering many of the most

2:11

impressive demos for my oh this year, and the

2:13

company's aim for it is to be an honest

2:15

to goodness Ai agent that can't just talk to

2:17

you, but also actually does things on your behalf.

2:19

Will. Come back to that in a moment. given

2:22

that is such a strong and clear through

2:24

line across both the open A I presentation

2:26

and does Google presentation. These companies are betting

2:28

on a totally new mode of interaction between

2:30

people in A that they're literally betting their

2:32

whole enterprise on. We. Also got

2:34

Googles answer to Soar a. Couple.

2:36

Months ago there had been a question of whether

2:38

open A. I was starting to lose the lead

2:41

that it has held for so long, but then

2:43

they dropped a set of demos for Saura, and

2:45

honestly everyone was just slack jawed. It was so

2:47

far ahead of what was available currently from other

2:49

text video generators that it honestly shifted many people's

2:52

opinions on whether specialized models can ever be to

2:54

be generalist model. Then. Again, uncommonly for

2:56

Open A, I saw a hasn't been available

2:58

for people to test. Part of that seems

3:00

to be economics with generations from storage is

3:02

costing an absolute boatload to create right now.

3:05

Instead, Open Ai has been pursuing relationships with

3:07

Hollywood in professional filmmakers but with bill Google

3:09

has produced an answer like up in a

3:11

Eyesore are Be A was not available to

3:13

the public and instead Google has been working

3:15

with a set of high profile you to

3:18

creators as well as Hollywood filmmakers to try

3:20

to start integrating the technology. I'll

3:22

also saw the announcement of a competitor

3:24

to Open a Eyes customs you be

3:26

tease something that Google is calling gems.

3:28

They. Are basically putting it in exactly the same way

3:31

that those custom she keys were created. Their announcement

3:33

tweet reads: Whether you need a yoga best the

3:35

or a calculus tutor in the coming months, you'll

3:37

be able to customize Gemini saving time when you

3:39

have specific ways you interact with Gemini again and

3:41

again. Gemini. Like Cbd for got

3:43

a conversational upgrade for voice adding personality,

3:45

the ability to interrupt it, and lower

3:48

latency to make conversations hopefully feel more

3:50

natural. And then from there there were

3:52

a ton of announcements of weird Gemini

3:54

was being integrated far more deeply into

3:56

Google products that it happened before. For.

3:58

example gemini is getting much more deeply

4:01

integrated into workspace. The Verge

4:03

again writes, Google is rolling Gemini 1.5 Pro into the

4:05

sidebar for Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, and Gmail. When it

4:07

rolls out to paid subscribers next month, it will turn

4:09

into more of a general purpose assistant within workspace that

4:11

can fetch info from any and all of the content

4:14

from your drive, no matter where you are. It will

4:16

also be able to do things for you like write

4:18

emails and incorporate info from a document you're currently looking

4:20

at, or remind you later to respond to an email

4:23

you're perusing. Interestingly, this integration is starting

4:25

to get so deep that it sort of appears

4:27

to me that Google is making a bet on

4:29

a future where our default interaction with computers is

4:31

talking to our AI assistant that then goes and

4:34

does the stuff that we do now for us.

4:36

So instead of writing an email, you talk to

4:38

your assistant, which writes the email. Instead of analyzing

4:40

a document, you ask your AI assistant to analyze

4:42

a document, etc., etc. This

4:45

one is coming pretty soon, so we'll see

4:47

just how ubiquitous it actually becomes and whether

4:49

people really start to shift those behaviors. Another

4:51

big important integration is around search.

4:54

Thank goodness we're losing the language

4:56

of search-generative experiences, which is an

4:58

incredible mouthful, and instead they're being

5:00

replaced with what they're calling AI

5:02

overviews. Basically, every search now is

5:04

going to have a perplexity-style summarization

5:06

first, rather than just the classic

5:08

blue links. It is not hyperbolic

5:10

to call this the most significant shift to Google

5:13

search since the product was launched 20-plus years ago.

5:16

Relatedly, Google Chrome is getting an AI assistant,

5:18

which will basically place text generation natively in

5:20

the browser. As

5:23

a listener of this show, I have

5:25

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6:57

let's talk about impressions. First

7:00

of all, I think Jan Pelec nailed what a lot of people were

7:02

feeling when he wrote, Google is out

7:04

for blood. What a bombardment. In

7:07

many ways, that's what it felt like to

7:09

me too, as opposed to open AI's tight

7:11

30 minute announcement. Google's IO keynote went on

7:13

for a couple of hours. In fact, in

7:15

its hugeness, it sort of gave the impression

7:17

that Google wasn't trying to compete one to

7:20

one between Project Astra, their AI assistant and

7:22

open AI's GPT-4.0 assistant. But instead to show

7:24

just how many different vectors of AI Google

7:26

is competing on. Still, there was

7:28

a lot of focus on comparing Project Astra

7:30

and GPT-4.0. Professor Ethan

7:33

Molloch writes, this video does a great

7:35

job highlighting the practical side of ubiquitous

7:37

multimodal AI agents. It's fascinating to

7:39

see the neck and neck technology race between Google and

7:41

open AI around the same set of problems and approaches.

7:44

Robert Lukosko writes, guys, that's really insane. I

7:46

rewatched this IO agents demo three times already.

7:48

Tell me Google will not win agent space.

7:51

It can schedule UPS pickup from a single

7:53

photo. However. The biggest critique was

7:55

that we're still comparing what was a slightly

7:57

janky live demo in the case of Open

7:59

AI. From extremely high production

8:01

demo videos prepared for google. A

8:04

mere from Do As Rights. there's a big

8:06

difference between Open A I Google of a

8:08

I ships useful stuff. For example, the Gb

8:10

for a model is incredibly fast and fifty

8:12

percent cheaper, and the voice improvement is incredible.

8:14

It's widely available, Google announced the stuff that

8:16

looks great and I owe presentations but isn't

8:18

really usable or even released. In many cases,

8:21

it's mostly vaporware. It's fantastic to see a

8:23

company with real potential to disrupt Google. B

8:25

C Investor rights. Google simply lacks credibility for

8:27

any kind of Ai demo at this point

8:29

like Project Ass or similar promo reels. Even

8:31

worse, meanwhile, Open A I does a semi

8:33

scripted event for Gb for oh, but enough

8:36

flaws come through to show it's real Google.

8:38

Need a full culture reset at this point?

8:40

What? Is referring to In part is that

8:42

people got extremely hyped back last December

8:44

when Google announced Gemini Ultra only to

8:46

realize that the videos that had been

8:49

most impressive. Really pretty doctor to show

8:51

exactly what they wanted to show vs

8:53

where the actual capacity was. Some.

8:55

People also pointed out that even these overly prepared

8:57

demos weren't as impressive as what Open A I

8:59

showed. Be ready! Who was a little bit harsh

9:01

on up at A I frankly wrote after watching

9:03

Google I would say to say what Open A

9:06

I showed yesterday was mind blowing. Astra is a

9:08

prototype voice assistant and seem like a two year

9:10

old baby compared to Away I, Scarlett Johanson. Daily.

9:13

Rodriguez said, well that's quite a turnaround from

9:15

yesterday to it's been to. Reply to definitely

9:17

is low Google I'll give me a comparison

9:19

and comparatively be open. A Iverson was very,

9:21

very good. Unfortunately, the people who

9:23

were at I oh and got their hands

9:25

on project Astra also weren't all that complementary.

9:28

Santiago. On twitter said I tried

9:30

Project Astra and the demo wasn't great.

9:33

One. Of the things that was totally on ignore

9:35

a bull was the difference in approach. Googles.

9:37

I'll presentation was, like I said, extremely

9:39

high production value and it also had

9:41

celebrity integrations woven throughout of an Ai.

9:43

Presentation was intimate and quaint by comparison. However,

9:45

I'm not so sure that does exactly

9:47

what Google one it. I asked my

9:49

Twitter followers to Googles high production values

9:51

and celebrity integrations make you more or less

9:54

stoked on their Ai announcements. literally. Forty

9:56

two point six percent of people said

9:58

it didn't impact their opinion, but. Those

10:00

who did have it affect their opinion about

10:02

ninety percent or less stoke rather than more

10:04

stoked. Broadly. Speaking other polls I

10:06

saw confirmed a pretty similar sensibility about

10:08

the two events. Daedalus asked did Google

10:10

cook open a I seventy five point

10:12

Nine percent of respondents said not Stanford

10:14

Enter Gao wrote who wins they Today

10:16

among nearly sixteen hundred voters. Sixty point

10:18

four percent said open A I'd compared

10:21

to just sixteen point One percent who

10:23

said Google. Jedi. I who does

10:25

research at Microsoft wrote so who on the

10:27

week and of her four hundred respondents, eighty

10:29

seven point five percent said open A I.

10:31

It. Is worth noting, however, that there

10:33

may be an audience bias issue here.

10:36

Open. Ai is very much competing for the

10:38

state of the art they are, as they

10:41

have been leading the pack. From a technology

10:43

perspective, a significant portion of the people who

10:45

are discussing this on a I, Twitter or

10:47

themselves technologist, developers and entrepreneurs. They're the type

10:50

of people in other words who value State

10:52

of the Art more than anything else. That's.

10:54

Different. I think that the audience that

10:56

Google is going for in the strategy

10:58

that Google is taking Google is taking

11:01

an approach of putting a I everywhere

11:03

with their incredibly large and diverse install

11:05

base. Open. A I does not

11:07

have users that they are bringing to

11:09

their party. Google has everyone using G,

11:11

email, everyone using maps, everyone using search,

11:14

everyone using docs, everyone using slides, etc,

11:16

etc, etc. While. They are clearly not

11:18

interested in seeding stated the art in any

11:20

way. the strategy that they're actually deploying doesn't

11:22

technically rely on being stated the art it

11:25

requires being good enough for these products to

11:27

actually be useful for the people who are

11:29

already there users. It's frankly a much lower

11:31

burden and one of the reasons that even

11:33

for an open A I, it's so incredibly

11:35

hard to compete in the space. So.

11:37

To the extent that you are trying to find

11:39

signal in these results, I don't think it's about

11:41

who is necessarily leading a I in the real

11:43

world, but it does seem to be clear that

11:45

people think that what open a eyes producing is

11:47

still a little bit at least ahead of what

11:49

Google Labs are producing. For. Some now they're

11:52

not ready to sign off on any of these yet.

11:54

Robert. scoble right time and a judge he moves of here

11:56

some things i'm going to do with my ai personal assistant since

11:58

that is what open a i and Google are trying to bring

12:00

to us. Scoble then puts together a list

12:02

of 30 questions by which he will

12:05

judge an AI assistant. For example, he writes, does it

12:07

do the basics? Like when you ask Siri to take

12:09

you back to your car, it doesn't work. But if

12:11

you ask it to take you back to your parked

12:13

car, it does. If you ask it

12:15

a thousand questions, how many does it answer accurately? In

12:17

my perfect world, it would have no mistakes, etc, etc,

12:20

etc. And I think,

12:22

hold aside Scoble's specifics, what he's getting at is that

12:24

ultimately AI assistants will only be a thing if they're

12:26

good enough for them to be a thing. The

12:28

general mass market of consumers isn't going to use

12:30

something because it's AI and cool. They're going to

12:32

use something strictly on the basis of whether it's

12:34

useful. We're still at the very early

12:37

stages of these products coming to market and

12:39

it's not at all clear to me yet

12:41

that either Project Astra or the new GPT-40

12:43

is actually going to clear that threshold. Still

12:46

after all of this, the competitive landscape is getting

12:48

a little bit clearer. DC Investor again pointed out

12:50

open AI stakes and why the news about them

12:52

potentially getting a deal with app is even more

12:54

interesting today than it was a couple of days

12:56

ago. He writes, the big thing

12:58

I see with Google's AI announcement yesterday is they

13:00

are driving for much deeper integration with your data

13:03

and your surroundings. Open AI better hope Apple can

13:05

do the same for them. I could see an

13:07

argument that open AI needs Apple as much as

13:09

Apple needs open AI. At the

13:12

same time, there are clearly some forces that have

13:14

been unleashed by AI that all

13:16

of these companies now feel subject to.

13:18

Darrell Bossenjo writes, the real problem open AI

13:20

has created for Google is that it has damaged

13:22

the virtuous cycle of websites making free content for

13:25

Google to index so Google sends them traffic in

13:27

return. Now Google AI results will provide

13:29

answers instead of sending sites traffic and the web

13:31

withers. Pete Pashall put it more

13:33

simply, it's official, generative search is now the

13:36

norm. Before the open AI event, we

13:38

had so many rumors that they were going to announce

13:40

a search product, which they of course didn't, but I

13:42

would be very surprised if something like it wasn't still

13:44

in the works. Still, maybe the

13:46

tweet of the day went to Andre Carpati,

13:48

formerly of open AI, who in reflecting on

13:50

the new open AI voice assistant, which reminded

13:53

so many people of Samantha from her, wrote,

13:55

the killer app of LLMs is Scarlett Johansson.

13:57

You all thought it was math or something.

14:00

AI is more competitive than ever, and next week

14:02

we're getting a Microsoft event as well, so stay

14:04

tuned for all of this, as there is going

14:06

to be a lot to discuss. If

14:09

you made it this far and want to dig

14:11

deeper into how to actually use these tools, please

14:13

go check out Super Intelligent. It's our platform for

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fast, fun, and useful AI learning. You can find

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it at vsuper.ai. For now, though, that's going to

14:19

do it for the AI Daily Brief. Until next

14:21

time, peace!