This is an archive article published on March 29, 2023

Google’s new tool lets developers build generative AI applications without coding

Google Cloud's new Gen App Builder allows developers to create enterprise-grade generative AI applications with limited machine learning skills.

Gen App Builders lets developers create search and chat experiences for users in minutes (Image: Google)

3 min readNew DelhiMar 29, 2023 06:55 PM IST First published on: Mar 29, 2023 at 06:55 PM IST

A couple of weeks back, Google announced generative AI capabilities for its Cloud Platform, which is a suite of cloud computing services on the company’s infrastructure. Now, Google has launched several features building upon those capabilities.

Generative AI app builder unveiled

Developing generative AI applications requires advanced machine-learning skills and resources. To address this challenge, Google Cloud has launched a new tool called Gen App Builder, to enable developers to create enterprise-grade generative AI applications even with limited machine learning skills. Using it, developers can build high-quality experiences “in minutes or hours,” thanks to Google’s no-code conversational and search tools, and integrate them into their apps and websites.

Developers can use Gen App Builder for the following things:

1. Enterprises can build apps that understand user intent via natural language and pull the right information from a company’s public and private data

2. Gen App Builder supports not just text, but other modalities such as images and videos as well. This will allow developers to build apps using a combination of text and images as inputs to find information across, documents, photos, and video content, “enabling richer customer interactions.”

3. Developers will also be provided with controls through which they can granularly blend the output of Google’s models to make answers more relevant to their enterprise.

4. Gen App Builder also makes it simple to connect to purchasing and provisioning systems and escalate customer conversations to a human agent wherever necessary.

Enterprise application consumers expect to interact with technology in a seamless, conversational way to quickly find the information they need. Gen App Builder can ingest large, complex datasets specific to a company like websites, documents, emails, and chat conversations – to synthesise information and provide actionable responses.

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Google gave an example for a use case for this: “If a retail customer reaches out to modify an order, a virtual agent can help them change it to another product. The customer doesn’t even need to provide the new product name—they can just upload an image and let the agent guide them through the rest.”

Vertex AI gains generative AI support with two new features

Launched in 2021, Google’s Vertex AI has now gained generative AI support too. The platform, which has been developed to fast-track ML model development and deployment, will now allow developers and data scientists to easily access, customise, and deploy foundation models.

Two features are being introduced to Vertex AI with this launch – Model Garden and Generative AI Studio. Model Garden provides access to a wide range of model types, including open-source and third-party models, while Generative AI Studio offers a managed environment for developers and data scientists to interact with, tune, and deploy foundation models. With these tools, organizations can build generative AI faster and with more confidence.