Google reveals Gemini 2, AI agents, and a personal assistant prototype

“Mariner is our exploration, very much a research prototype at the moment, of how to reimagine the user interface with AI,” says Hassabis.

Google launched Gemini in December 2023 as part of an effort to take on OpenAI, the startup behind the wildly popular chatbot. ChatGPT. Despite having invested heavily in AI and contributing key research innovationsGoogle has seen OpenAI lauded as the new leader in AI and its chatbot even promoted as perhaps a better way to search the web. With its Gemini models, Google now offers a chatbot like ChatGPT. It also added generative AI for research and other products.

When Hassabis first revealed Gemini in December 2023, he he told WIRED that the way she was trained to understand audio and video would eventually prove transformative.

Google today also offered a look at how this could transpire with a new version of an experimental project called Astra. This allows Gemini 2 to make sense of its surroundings, as seen through a smartphone camera or other device, and converse naturally in a human voice about what it sees.

WIRED tested Gemini 2 in the Google DeepMind offices and found it to be an impressive new kind of personal assistant. In a room decorated to look like a bar, Gemini 2 quickly evaluated several bottles of wine in sight, providing geographic information, details of taste characteristics, and prices sourced from the web.

“One of the things I want Astra to do is be the ultimate recommendation system,” says Hassabis. “It could be very exciting. There can be connections between the books you like to read and the food you like to eat. They probably exist and we haven’t discovered them.”

Through Astra, Gemini 2 can not only search the web for information relevant to the user’s environment and use Google Lens and Maps. It can also remember what it has seen and heard, although Google says that users can delete the data, which provides an ability to learn the taste and interests of the user.

In a mock-up gallery, Gemini 2 offers a wealth of historical information about the paintings on the walls. The model quickly read from several books as WIRED flipped through the pages, instantly translating poetry from Spanish to English and describing recurring themes.

“There are obvious business model opportunities for advertising or recommendations,” says Hassabis when asked if companies could pay to have their products highlighted by Astra.

Although the demos were carefully curated, and Gemini 2 will inevitably make mistakes in real use, the model has withstood the efforts to fail quite well. It is adapted to interruptions and as WIRED suddenly changed the view of the phone, improvising as much as a person could.

At one point, your correspondent showed Gemini 2 an iPhone and said it was stolen. Gemini 2 said it was wrong to steal and the phone should be returned. When pushed, however, he conceded that it would be good to use the device to make an emergency phone call.

Hassabis acknowledges that bringing AI into the physical world could result in unexpected behaviors. “I think we need to learn how people are going to use these systems,” he says. “What they find useful for; but also the side of privacy and security, we have to think about it very seriously in front.”