Google Gemini/Google
AI has a branding problem.
It's not me who determines it, but the biggest companies in the world like Google and Microsoft, which I talked about a few weeks ago.
Nor is it certain that this is true at all, but the companies are still trying to get us to adopt technologies through branding.
Is this the right way to get us to use their products?
Bye bye Bard, hello Gemini
We heard about Jiminy at the end of 2023, when it was reported that Google is upgrading Bard with a new and upgraded language model that will give it more capabilities and "intelligence".
Recently a change file was leaked from Google itself which more or less verifies that Bard is now Jiminy, but beyond the name change, what does this change actually mean?
It is important to note that Google is very inconsistent with the names of models including products related to chat.
Who remembers the late Google Buzz or Wave? Who also remembers Google Hangouts, which is now Google Chat. Google Assistant, Google's rather successful answer to Apple's Siri, may also follow this path, when in January it gets rid of 17 features Pretty significant but not dead yet. So calling Bard Gemini isn't the weirdest thing Google could do.
What does the new branding provide?
In order to answer this, you need to examine what Microsoft's new branding from Bing gives to Copilot?
By and large, reputation.
Bing had a reputation that was not a hit to say the least, and Bard also started his way in a somewhat crooked way, when even in his live demo in front of an audience he had no data.
Since then, Google has fought over the branding, and now, a year after Bard was announced on February 2, 2023, it is sending it to the cloud and reviving a new brand: Jiminy.
Extend the act
This is how you will improve performance and pleasure in bed - with an exclusive sale
in collaboration with "Gabra"
What is Gemini anyway?
Gemini is the promising family of AI models developed by Google AI Research Labs.
As of today, it comes in three models (Ultra, Lite and Nano), which have been trained to be multimodal, that is, they have been pre-trained and tuned on a wide range of media, including audio files, images and videos, code bases and text in different languages, with the aim of providing a complete interaction More than we have known so far.
All of these set Gemini apart from large language models such as Google's LaMDA, which was trained only on text data.
LaMDA cannot understand or create anything but text, while Gemini models are able to understand images, audio and other formats.
It also sets it apart from OpenAI, today's leading competitor in generative artificial intelligence, which provides different tools for different data formats (ChatGPT for text and Dall-E for images).
Google's ambition with Gemini is to gather all the capabilities - text, audio, video and images - in one tool.
In theory, Gemini can perform a variety of tasks, from transcribing speech to captioning photos and videos to producing artwork.
However, much like Bard's hasty launch, which came late compared to OpenAI's mad rush exactly a year ago, Gemini also seems to have come out of the oven a bit before it was fully baked.
Because of this, only some of these capabilities have reached the product stage, but Google promises that the rest will arrive very soon.
So what is the difference between Bard and Gemini?
For a fairly short period of time, from the launch of Gemini until today, Bard was the interface through which the Gemini language model could be accessed, while Gemini itself was the language model that drives Bard.
A bit like the difference between ChatGPT's user interface and the GPT3.5 or 4 language model. But as mentioned, Bard suffered from problematic branding and a rather negative image among users, so putting it on the front turned out to be a bad idea.
Gemini, on the other hand, won much more sympathy and this is probably the reason for the new branding, but actually it is not a new product but an improved one.
According to Google's statement, they wanted to "build a new generation of artificial intelligence models, inspired by the way people understand and interact with the world."
In short, a very smart personal assistant, more than Bard and much more than Siri.
Google increased the hype train and publicity around Gemini with the launch of the Galaxy S24 when it was integrated into some of the features of the new devices and showed impressive capabilities of image processing and natural language understanding.
The land is fertile.
We have a not bad view of purpose at all, if tomorrow Bard dies and Gemini rises everything is fine.
Oh, and there's also an app in the works apparently, just like Microsoft.
Rebranding in a digital world
Rebranding a software or online service (SaaS) is much easier than rebranding a brand with a physical presence.
Look at the rebranding of Orange as a partner about a decade ago.
Logos had to be physically changed in all stores, hardware products such as modems and routers also received the new branding, and of course the shirts, employee badges, digital assets and campaigns, and how is that possible without making a big noise in the media so that everyone knows?
Bard's rebranding as Jiminy, on the other hand, can be received by email.
This is a completely cosmetic change and wherever it says bronze, it will now say Jiminy with the new shiny logo.
Rebranding a product with a positive reputation can also mark payment options.
Google has already revealed that there are three main models: Nano, Pro and Ultra.
The expectation is that on Ultra, the most expensive model, we will have to pay, just like ChatGPT Pro.
This will probably be the first time that Google requires payment for a feature for consumers.
So far the most familiar payment to consumers has been its cloud storage.
This is Google's first attempt to lock features behind a paywall for the private consumer audience (B2C).
Just for the sake of comparison, consider that Google would have demanded money for basic features of Gmail, such as the option to send a picture in an email, which would have cost another $10 a month.
The new branding opens the door to the possibility that this service, and perhaps other services down the road, will involve a fee, because if all the competitors are doing it, then why not Google?
And that's not all
Google's branding makes much more sense than Microsoft's.
There is the similar element of reputation here, but also new technology, an app, and perhaps also payment options that were more difficult to collect on a product like "Bard Pro", for example.
It is also a relatively easy process that Google does not need to invest money in its promotion, except maybe creating the logo in different sizes, and of course developing the model, and that is what it does anyway.
All this before the most interesting player enters the race - Apple, with its own AI that will be part of Siri or will receive its own branding as Apple AI.
In the meantime, start forgetting about Bard and get used to Jiminy.
Avi Tsadaka is a LinkedIn expert for companies and organizations and CEO of Dr. LinkedIn.
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