Google Bard is now called Gemini; now available with Gemini Ultra

Google has had a busy couple of days recently, having updated its Bard chatbot to now be powered by its Gemini Pro Large Language Model (LLM), a week ago. However, the company has now renamed the chatbot itself to Gemini.

That’s not all. It has also launched a new subscription service, wherein users can access Gemini (Formerly Bard) powered by the new Gemini Ultra model, which was undergoing testing all this time. Read on to find out more.

Gemini Ultra: What you need to know

Google also launched a new tiered subscription service, wherein users for a fee of up to $20 a month, can use Gemini as a free service, or a version powered by Google’s Gemini Ultra 1.0 model – currently its largest and most powerful LLM.

According to the company, the Gemini Ultra model is capable of more advanced tasks such as coding, logical reasoning, following more nuanced instructions to generate text, as well as collaborating on creative projects. In addition to allowing you to have longer and more in-depth conversations, Google claims that it can also understand context better from your previous prompts.

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With this, Gemini Ultra 1.0 can do everything from acting as a personal tutor for you, putting together quizzes or back-and-forth debates and discussions, or even helping content creators with fresh ideas for content, based on analysis of recent trends.

The Gemini Ultra model can be accessed through the Gemini Advanced plan, which, as mentioned earlier, costs Rs 1950 per month. The first two months of the plan also happen to be free.

The plan, in addition to the Gemini Ultra model, also provides users with up to 2TB of cloud storage. It is currently available only in English. However, the plan is expected to be rolled out with support for additional languages soon, and will be available for more countries besides the 40 it is available in currently.

However, users who prefer to use the free version, or the standard or Premium plans, the latter of which are priced at Rs 210 per month, and Rs 650 per month respectively, will get access to the Gemini Pro model.

Google Gemini will be rolled out to Android smartphone users in the coming weeks as a Google Assistant integration, as well as a standalone app in the coming weeks.  On the other hand, it will be rolled out right from the Google app for iPhone users.

Duet AI: All you need to know

Interestingly, Bard isn’t the only AI platform Google is rebranding to Gemini. It is also rebranding the Duet AI platform to Gemini. Duet AI will now be called Gemini for Workspace. This essentially, is a bunch of AI features incorporated into Google Docs, Mail, Meet, Slides, and Sheets, aimed at enhancing collaboration and productivity in the Google Workspace. The service can be compared to Microsoft’s Copilot integration in the Microsoft Office Suite.

Gemini over the past year

Gemini (formerly Bard), was first launched in February last year. Back then, it was powered by Google’s LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications). Later it received an update, to be powered by a new LLM called PaLM 2. Gemini Pro, and now Gemini Ultra, part of the Gemini family of LLMs, are the latest ones to power Google’s generative AI platform.

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The Gemini family of LLMs was first launched in December 2023, and consisted of three LLMs –Gemini Ultra, Gemini Pro, and Gemini Nano. While Gemini Pro and Gemini Ultra 1.0 can be accessed on Google’s Gemini platform on smartphones as well as laptops, the Gemini Nano model is designed to run locally on smaller devices such as smartphones.