Google retires Bard with launch of Gemini Advanced as $20 subscription

One Thing Today in Tech

Google is retiring Bard, with the launch of a more capable chatbot, Gemini Advanced, but first a couple of other headlines.

Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, yesterday, stood by its actions imposing restrictions on Paytm Payments Bank, stating that its order barring the small finance bank from most activities after Feb. 29, including taking any fresh deposits, was issued only after “persistent non-compliance” with rules.

The action taken by the powerful banking regulator “is always proportionate to the gravity of the situation,” the bank’s Governor Shaktikanta Das, said in a media briefing, TechCrunch reports.

Amazon Web Services India has started a space accelerator programme that will offer technical, business, and mentorship help to startups focused on space technology, with support from, T-Hub, and Minfy, an AWS systems integrator partner.

This is AWS’s first accelerator program in India focused on startups in the space sector, and follows the MoU it signed with ISRO and IN-SPACe in September last year, to nurture startups in space-tech, and support innovation in the sector.

One thing today

A year after introducing Bard, Google is retiring the name and rebranding its AI products and features under its Gemini brand. It is also launching Ultra 1.0, its most capable large language model yet.

“AI is also now central to two businesses that have grown rapidly in recent years: our Cloud and Workspace services and our popular subscription service Google One, which is just about to cross 100 million subscribers,” Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, writes in a blog post.

“Gemini is evolving to be more than just the models,” Pichai writes. “It supports an entire ecosystem — from the products that billions of people use every day, to the APIs and platforms helping developers and businesses innovate.”

The largest model Ultra 1.0 is the first to outperform human experts on MMLU (massive multitask language understanding), which uses a combination of 57 subjects — including math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics — to test knowledge and problem-solving abilities.

Gemini is available in 40 languages on the web, and is coming to a new Gemini app on Android and on the Google app on iOS.

The version with Ultra will be called Gemini Advanced, which is more capable at reasoning, following instructions, coding, and creative collaboration.

“In blind evaluations with Google’s third-party raters, Gemini Advanced with Ultra 1.0 is now the most preferred chatbot compared to leading alternatives,” Sissi Hsiao, vice president and general manager for Gemini and Google Assistant, wrote in a blog post.

With the Ultra 1.0 model, Gemini Advanced is more capable at complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions and collaborating on creative projects, Hsiao writes. Gemini Advanced allows you to have longer, more detailed conversations, and it also better understands the context from your previous prompts.

Gemini Advanced can be a personal tutor, help with more advanced coding scenarios, or generate fresh content. Gemini Advanced is available today in more than 150 countries and territories in English, as part of a new Google One AI Premium Plan for about $20 a month, with all the existing features of the Google One, including the 2TB of storage. In addition, AI Premium subscribers will soon be able to use Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Slides, and Sheets. And Google is offering a two-month free trial.

“To mitigate issues like unsafe content or bias, we’ve built safety into our products in accordance with our AI Principles,” Hsiao writes in her post.

You can find more details in Google’s updated Gemini Technical Report.

Gemini and Gemini Advanced are being rolled out on smartphones via a new app on Android. And in the Google app on iOS in the coming weeks.