Google’s Cloud Subsequent 2024 occasion takes place in Las Vegas by means of Thursday, and which means numerous new cloud-focused information on every thing from Gemini, Google’s AI-powered chatbot, to AI to devops and safety. Final 12 months’s occasion was the primary in-person Cloud Subsequent since 2019, and Google took to the stage to indicate off its ongoing dedication to AI with its Duet AI for Gmail and many other debuts, together with expansion of generative AI to its security product line and other enterprise-focused updates and debuts.
Don’t have time to observe the full archive of Google’s keynote event? That’s OK; we’ve summed up an important components of the occasion beneath, with extra particulars from the TechCrunch staff on the bottom on the occasion. And Tuesday’s updates weren’t the one issues Google made accessible to non-attendees — Wednesday’s developer-focused stream started at 10:30 a.m. PT.
Google Vids
Leveraging AI to assist prospects develop artistic content material is one thing Huge Tech is in search of, and Tuesday, Google launched its model. Google Vids, a new AI-fueled video creation tool, is the newest characteristic added to the Google Workspace.
Right here’s the way it works: Google claims customers could make movies alongside different Workspace instruments like Docs and Sheets. The enhancing, writing and manufacturing is all there. You can also collaborate with colleagues in actual time inside Google Vids. Read more
Gemini Code Help
After reading about Google’s new Gemini Code Assist, an enterprise-focused AI code completion and help instrument, chances are you’ll be asking your self if that sounds acquainted. And you’d be appropriate. TechCrunch Senior Editor Frederic Lardinois writes that “Google previously offered a similar service under the now-defunct Duet AI branding.” Then Gemini got here alongside. Code Help is a direct competitor to GitHub’s Copilot Enterprise. Here’s why
And to place Gemini Code Help into context, Alex Wilhelm breaks down its competitors with Copilot, and its potential dangers and advantages to builders, within the newest TechCrunch Minute episode.
Google Workspace
Picture Credit: Google
Among the many new options are voice prompts to kick off the AI-based “Help me write” feature in Gmail while on the go. One other one for Gmail features a strategy to immediately flip tough electronic mail drafts right into a extra polished electronic mail. Over on Sheets, you’ll be able to ship out a customizable alert when a sure area adjustments. In the meantime, a brand new set of templates make beginning a brand new spreadsheet simpler. For the Doc lovers, there may be assist for tabs now. That is good as a result of, in accordance with the corporate, you’ll be able to “organize information in a single document instead of linking to multiple documents or searching through Drive.” After all, subscribers get the goodies first. Read more
Google additionally appears to have plans to monetize two of its new AI options for the Google Workspace productiveness suite. This can appear like $10/month/consumer add-on packages. One might be for the brand new AI conferences and messaging add-on that takes notes for you, gives assembly summaries and interprets content material into 69 languages. The opposite is for the launched AI safety bundle, which helps admins preserve Google Workspace content material safer. Read more
Imagen 2
In February, Google introduced a picture generator constructed into Gemini, Google’s AI-powered chatbot. The corporate pulled it shortly after it was discovered to be randomly injecting gender and racial diversity into prompts about folks. This resulted in some offensive inaccuracies. Whereas we waited for an eventual re-release, Google got here out with the improved image-generating instrument, Imagen 2. That is inside its Vertex AI developer platform and has extra of a concentrate on enterprise. Imagen 2 is now usually accessible and comes with some enjoyable new capabilities, together with inpainting and outpainting. There’s additionally what Google’s calling “text-to-live images” the place you can now create quick, four-second movies from textual content prompts, alongside the traces of AI-powered clip era instruments like Runway, Pika and Irreverent Labs. Read more
Vertex AI Agent Builder
We are able to all use a bit little bit of assist, proper? Meet Google’s Vertex AI Agent Builder, a brand new instrument to assist corporations construct AI brokers.
“Vertex AI Agent Builder allows people to very easily and quickly build conversational agents,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian mentioned. “You can build and deploy production-ready, generative AI-powered conversational agents and instruct and guide them the same way that you do humans to improve the quality and correctness of answers from models.”
To do that, the corporate makes use of a course of known as “grounding,” the place the solutions are tied to one thing thought of to be a dependable supply. On this case, it’s counting on Google Search (which in actuality might or couldn’t be correct). Read more
Gemini involves databases
Google calls Gemini in Databases a set of options that “simplify all aspects of the database journey.” In much less jargony language, it’s a bundle of AI-powered, developer-focused instruments for Google Cloud prospects who’re creating, monitoring and migrating app databases. Read more
Google renews its concentrate on knowledge sovereignty
Picture Credit: MirageC / Getty Pictures
Google has provided cloud sovereignties earlier than, however now it is focused more on partnerships reasonably than constructing them out on their very own. Read more
Safety instruments get some AI love
Picture Credit: Getty Pictures
Google jumps on board the productizing generative AI-powered security tool train with plenty of new merchandise and options aimed toward giant corporations. These embrace Risk Intelligence, which may analyze giant parts of probably malicious code. It additionally lets customers carry out pure language searches for ongoing threats or indicators of compromise. One other is Chronicle, Google’s cybersecurity telemetry providing for cloud prospects to help with cybersecurity investigations. The third is the enterprise cybersecurity and danger administration suite Safety Command Middle. Read more
Nvidia’s Blackwell platform
One of many anticipated bulletins is Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell platform coming to Google Cloud in early 2025. Sure, that appears so far-off. Nevertheless, here’s what to stay up for: assist for the high-performance Nvidia HGX B200 for AI and HPC workloads and GB200 NBL72 for giant language mannequin (LLM) coaching. Oh, and we are able to reveal that the GB200 servers might be liquid-cooled. Read more
Chrome Enterprise Premium
In the meantime, Google is increasing its Chrome Enterprise product suite with the launch of Chrome Enterprise Premium. What’s new right here is that it primarily pertains largely to safety capabilities of the present service, primarily based on the perception that browsers are actually the endpoints the place many of the high-value work inside an organization is completed. Read more
Gemini 1.5 Professional
Picture Credit: Google
Everybody can use a “half” each every now and then, and Google obliges with Gemini 1.5 Professional. This, Kyle Wiggers writes, is “Google’s most capable generative AI model,” and is now accessible in public preview on Vertex AI, Google’s enterprise-focused AI improvement platform. Right here’s what you get for that half: The quantity of context that it will possibly course of, which is from 128,000 tokens as much as 1 million tokens, the place “tokens” refers to subdivided bits of uncooked knowledge (just like the syllables “fan,” “tas” and “tic” within the phrase “fantastic”). Read more
Open supply instruments
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At Google Cloud Subsequent 2024, the company debuted a number of open source tools primarily aimed toward supporting generative AI initiatives and infrastructure. One is Max Diffusion, which is a set of reference implementations of assorted diffusion fashions that run on XLA, or Accelerated Linear Algebra, units. Then there may be JetStream, a brand new engine to run generative AI fashions. The third is MaxTest, a set of text-generating AI fashions focusing on TPUs and Nvidia GPUs within the cloud. Read more
Axion
Picture Credit: Google
We don’t know so much about this one, nonetheless, here is what we do know: Google Cloud joins AWS and Azure in saying its first custom-built Arm processor, dubbed Axion. Frederic Lardinois writes that “based on Arm’s Neoverse 2 designs, Google says its Axion instances offer 30% better performance than other Arm-based instances from competitors like AWS and Microsoft and up to 50% better performance and 60% better energy efficiency than comparable X86-based instances.” Read more
The complete Google Cloud Subsequent keynote
If all of that isn’t sufficient of an AI and cloud replace deluge, you’ll be able to watch your entire occasion keynote by way of the embed beneath.
Google Cloud Subsequent’s developer keynote
On Wednesday, Google held a separate keynote for developers. They provided a deeper dive into the ins and outs of plenty of instruments outlined through the Tuesday keynote, together with Gemini Cloud Help, utilizing AI for product suggestions and chat brokers, ending with a showcase from Hugging Face. You’ll be able to take a look at the complete keynote beneath.
