Google leans into AI by expanding Duet, integrating Meta’s Llama, and more

Google Cloud made several announcements related to artificial intelligence (AI) during its Next ’23 conference and in a series of press releases published on Aug. 29.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said at the event:

“We are in an entirely new era of cloud, fueled by generative AI…our goal is to help companies use AI and other cloud technologies to streamline their operations, increase productivity, and create entirely new lines of business.”

Google Cloud said that its collaborative AI tool, Duet AI, will soon be generally available with uses in Google Meet and Google Chat.

With Google Deepmind, the group announced SynthID, which will allow AI-generated images to be watermarked and identified in a way that is invisible to the human eye.

Google Cloud also announced improvements to its Vertex AI service for developers. Along with other additions, Vertex will soon integrate third-party large language models, including Anthropic AI’s Claude 2 as well as Meta’s Llama 2 and Code Llama.

Google Cloud also revealed improvements to the cloud infrastructure that AI customers rely on. Crucially, it announced a new chip called Cloud TPUv5e and said that more robust virtual machines (A3 VMs with NVIDIA H100 GPU) will be soon generally available.

Google Cloud unveils multiple AI partnerships

Google Cloud also announced AI partnerships with several major companies. Notably, the company is working with Estee Lauder on AI-powered customer satisfaction, with GE Appliances on AI conversation and recipe generation, with FOX Sports on AI-powered content search, and with General Motors on conversational AI in vehicles.

It has also partnered with the game company CAPCOM, the mobility company Cannoo, the multinational software company SAP, the New Jersey health care network HMH, the theme park company Six Flags — and two AI startups, Runway and AI21 Labs.

Aside from those partners, Google Cloud also listed numerous customers and said that over half of all funded generative AI startups are customers of its services.

Past reports suggested that Google is investing heavily in AI startups, including Anthropic and Runway, which were mentioned in today’s announcements.

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