Google’s Sundar Pichai reveals why Bard branding is out, Gemini is in

"Gemini represents the future frontier of AI," says Sundar Pichai on launch of new Gemini Advanced subscription.

Goodbye Google, hello Gemini. (Image: CNBC/YouTube)

Google last week announced a major rebranding for Bard. Alongside the rebrand, Gemini unveiled Gemini Advanced, a $20 per month subscription service giving users access to Gemini Advanced, the company’s “most capable AI assistant to date.” The rebranding signals Gemini going all-in on AI, with CEO Sundar Pichai saying the new name “represents our approach overall in building the most capable and responsible AI models.”

In an exclusive CNBC interview, Pichai explained the reasoning behind the rebrand. “It really made sense to evolve it to be Gemini, because that’s the underlying Gemini model when you use it,” he said. “I think the way we’ll keep advancing our models, users can experience it directly.”

Gemini is launching apps on iOS and Android to make its AI assistant easily accessible. Android users can even replace Google Assistant with Gemini as the default. This effectively sidelines Google Assistant in favor of Gemini.

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Gemini Advanced is Gemini’s big answer to ChatGPT Plus. For $20 per month, subscribers get access to Gemini Ultra 1.0. Pichai touted Ultra as Gemini’s “most capable model to date” that excels at complex queries and tasks like coding.

“It really shines. Use the Gemini app on your phone, say ‘tell me more about what I’m seeing on my screen.’ It’s really capable along those dimensions,” Pichai said.

Pichai cited a breakthrough moment when Ultra understood a series of images as video. “It was really when the series of images made sense – almost understanding it as video and can answer questions related to that,” he said.

Safely training Ultra at scale was the biggest hurdle, Pichai noted. But he believes the model “represents the future frontier of AI.”

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Also read | Google Gemini: Most useful tricks you probably haven’t tried yet

Gemini will also power AI features across productivity apps like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. Previously marketed as Duet AI, these are now under the Gemini brand.

There’s even a toggle in the Gemini app to switch between classic search and conversational Gemini search. Pichai sees this as “an opportunity for search to solve new use cases better than ever before.”

The launch of Gemini Advanced represents Gemini competing head-to-head with Microsoft, which recently invested billions in OpenAI. When asked about the rivalry, Pichai said Gemini will stay focused on developing the best products for users.

Pichai has been testing Ultra 1.0 himself, using it to brush up on coding skills and write real estate listings. “A friend of mine [was] trying to put his house up for sale. [He] put a few pictures in it and [asked Ultra] to write a copy for it and it understood the architecture of the home, looked at furnishings and wrote a better copy than we could have.”

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It’s clear Gemini represents Google going all-in on being an AI-first company. The new services and rebranding show Gemini positioning itself at the forefront of consumer and enterprise AI products.

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