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Google’s Gemini AI chatbot has quickly become one of the major players in the generative AI space. Despite its rocky start, Gemini is one of the only true competitors to ChatGPT. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
What is Google Gemini?
Google first introduced its AI endeavor as Bard in March 2023 in a free and experimental capacity. The chatbot was originally run on the LaMDA large language model (LLM).
In August 2023, it introduced Google Duet as an enterprise option featuring AI-inundated Workspace apps, including Gmail, Drive, Slides, Docs, and others.
However, in December 2023, Google upgraded the Bard language model to the Gemini LLM. By February it unified Duet and Bard into a single product and rebranded all of its AI options under a single name: Gemini. As of June 2024, Gemini is available on Android in 29 languages for any device running Android 10 or newer and has at least 2GB of RAM. iOS users can access the service through the Gemini tab in the Google app.
Like ChatGPT, Google Gemini is an AI chatbot that can generate text and answer questions, and it can do just about anything that ChatGPT can do.
Google is marketing its Gemini generative AI as especially powerful because of its multimodal capabilities that allow it to perform tasks such as generating text, images, video, audio, and code within the same platform. Gemini supports several large language model (LLM) options that are available for different tiers of purpose and expertise, including Gemini Nano, Gemini Pro, Gemini Ultra, and Gemini Advanced.
Google has big aspirations to make its AI useful in a host of applications. After testing Gemini integration into its Chrome browser, Google officially implemented the technology in Search this past May at I/O 2024. It has also been implemented into Google’s Workspace apps, including Gmail, Drive, Slides, Docs, and others. Those features were also announced at I/O 2024, and began rolling out to select users in June of that year.
Google also offers a paid tier called Google One AI Premium, which includes several perks, including a significantly higher number of queries they can ask the most advanced iteration of Google’s AI (GPT-4o) in a given three-hour period. Read on to learn about how to get started with Google Gemini and which Gemini option might be right for you.
How to sign up for Google Gemini
Signing up is simple if you’re looking to use the free version of Google Gemini. Many people already have a Google account and email. You simply use your Google credentials to access the Gemini site and you’re all set. If you need to, you can sign up for a Google account before you proceed.
You may see some terms and services notifications, which you can read through and confirm at your discretion. Then there may be a notice that Google Bard is now Google Gemini. After that, you will see a page that resembles most typical AI chatbot setups. It includes a personalized introduction with your name, some prompt suggestions, and a prompt text box at the bottom.
In the upper-left corner is a Gemini drop-down menu where you can refresh your page to a new chat or select the option to upgrade to the Gemini Advanced paid tier. In the furthest left corner is a three-line icon that lets you expand the menu. Here you can see a new chat tab, your recent prompts, a help option, activity options, settings, and another option to upgrade to Gemini Advanced. Select the three-line icon again to collapse the menu.
You can see your Google account icon in the upper-right corner. Select it to see your Google account details and any other connected accounts.
Getting started with prompts
Google Gemini is similar to many other AI chatbots, with the ability to process and generate different kinds of text via prompts. Some examples Google uses for potential prompts include explaining challenging topics and event planning. Other common uses for Gemini include story and essay generation, language translation, code generation and editing, and solving math equations, among others.
You can begin a prompt with a strong action statement such as “write,” “solve,” “summarize,” “generate,” “create,” or “help me” to indicate what you need done and proceed with as much detail as you need to ensure the best result.
One prompt I used was “teach me about the theory of relativity in simple terms,” and Gemini returned to me a detailed, yet still truncated response about the scientific theory. It generated three drafts from which to choose and also suggested other aspects of the topic I could search for more information.
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