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30 Aug 2024

Meet Google's Gemini, your AI personal assistant

Scott Hocking

STACK Senior Editor

Google’s new AI assistant, Gemini, is here to help. Let’s check out what it does and how it can supercharge your creativity and productivity.

What is Gemini?

Formerly known as Bard, Gemini is Google’s powerful AI assistant, capable of composing text documents and emails in different tones, generating ideas and images, and responding to user input via a simple prompt. It can also learn, solve problems, and provide context for more helpful responses.

Gemini is a multimodal AI model, which means it can complete complex tasks and understand and combine info including text, code, audio, images, and video.

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How does it work?

Without getting too technical, Gemini uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to recognise, generate, summarise and translate text, and can also generate and analyse code, process audio, video, and more.

Gemini is a Large Language Model (LLM) AI, which uses machine learning that’s been trained using trillions of words, enabling it to learn common language patterns and comprehension to generate human language text.

It can assist with composing an attention-grabbing social media post, manage schedules and events, or help you prepare for a job interview. Simply type or ask what you want, or perform a visual search by tapping the camera to upload a picture.

User prompts and questions help to improve its responses, and if it doesn’t know something, it will search for the correct response. Ask it why the sky is blue and you’ll get a summary on sunlight scattering. And were we to ask it to act as a journalist and write a feature on itself, it would, but that would be cheating!

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How do you use it?

All you need to get started is a Google account and the Gemini mobile app*. Exclusive to Android devices, the app can be downloaded from Google Play and is compatible with devices running Android 12 and above, Google Pixel 6 phones and above, as well as Samsung Galaxy S24 phones and above.

The Gemini ecosystem is integrated into a number of Google services such as Google Cloud, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Workspace.

Using Gemini in Gmail requires a Google AI Premium Plan to unlock assistance with creating and refining emails using Compose, while connecting to Google Workspace enables Gemini to find, summarise and provide responses based on your documents, files and emails. This content is kept private and never shared, and extensions can be disabled at any time.

There is also an option to use Gemini like Google Assistant, allowing you to make calls, set timers, and more with a simple “Hey Google” command. Gemini is expected to eventually replace the popular voice assistant.

* The Gemini mobile app is available for selected devices, languages and countries. Internet connection required. Check responses for accuracy.


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Gemini Live

Announced at the recent Made by Google event, Gemini Live will be integrated across the new Pixel 9 series of smartphones.

A convenient, hands-free alternative to entering text or performing a Google search, Gemini Live enables free-flowing conversation with the chatbot directly from your phone, with the option to choose from ten different voices.

You can even interrupt it mid-sentence or change the subject, and the AI will keep up.


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The Gemini family

Gemini is a multimodal AI that has different models for different uses and Google applications.

Gemini Nano

Designed for mobile devices and launched on the Google Pixel 8 Pro (and also available on the Samsung Galaxy S24 series), Nano works on the device, so you can carry out AI-powered tasks without a network connection.

Use it with Magic Compose to transform the style of your writing, or summarise key points and transcribe voice recordings in the Recorder app.

Gemini Pro

This cloud-based model can handle a wider range of tasks via the Gemini app, and can process large documents, hours of audio, video, and more. Pro is also capable of delivering faster responses and can understand complex questions.

Gemini Ultra

The premium model designed for highly complex tasks like code and reasoning, supported language translation, and image generation. This subscription-based model is available to users with a Google One AI premium plan.


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