Google 'secretly building AI versions of celebrities' you can talk to all day
Technology
The company unveiled a host of AI features
(Web Desk) - Google is rumored to be developing an AI chatbot with responses modeled after those of celebrities and influencers.
The tech giant has quietly been working on the project while trying to build partnerships with notable figures, insiders claim.
The story was broken by The Information, citing two people with knowledge of the project. Google has yet to confirm or deny the report.
The company is supposedly working to tweak the response style of its preexisting Gemini AI model to mimic the speech of celebrities and influencers.
Insiders claim the company is simultaneously building a feature that will let users create their own programs.
The chatbot might serve as a response to Meta’s celebrity AI chatbots, which debuted late last year.
The project was first unveiled at the September 2023 Meta Connect event but only available to select users as a beta.
The chatbots became widely available in the United States three months later, integrated through WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
While they use the likeness of celebrities like rapper Snoop Dogg and former NFL player Tom Brady, they appear to take liberties when it comes to personality - and have different names to boot.
Regardless of whether its celebrity chatbot project pans out, Google already appears to be taking aim at its competitors in the AI space.
The company unveiled a host of AI features, including upgrades to its Gemini chatbot, at its annual I/O developer conference last month.
Google also announced Monday that it would be adding the latest language model, Gemini 1.5 Pro, as a side panel to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Gmail.
The tool will be able to pull information from documents in Drive and write or summarize emails.
Gemini will also arrive in the Gmail app for iOS and Android. Some features like email highlights will be available instantly, while others are expected to arrive at a later date.
However, there's a catch: the sidebar will only be offered to users who pay for Gemini through Google Workspace, Gemini Education, or Google One AI.
These developments come amid users' frustrations with Google's controversial AI Overview tool, which is meant to summarize search engine results.
Social media users have reported false and misleading answers and complained that the tool makes Google Search harder to use.
Google is not the only tech giant fighting for a spot at the forefront of AI innovation.
Insiders say Apple is preparing to issue a response in the form of its own AI tools - in what analyst Paolo Pescatore described as an "arms race."
