Google says generative AI is ready to do real work
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Google is holding a "Gemini at Work" event Tuesday to convince businesses that its generative AI is better than offerings from Microsoft and OpenAI.
Why it matters: The largely virtual event comes amid a flurry of claims from tech providers and growing skepticism that genAI is ready for broad use beyond coding and customer support.
Driving the news: Google is using the event to tout more than 100 examples of customers using its Gemini and Vertex AI tools for a wide range of business uses.
- That list includes Snap, Dun & Bradstreet, Puma and Radisson Hotel Group.
- Scotts Miracle-Gro, for example, is using Google Cloud's Vertex to create an AI "garden sommelier" that dishes out advice for aspiring green thumbs.
- The company is also announcing some modest product enhancements and talking up the latest trend in genAI — semi-autonomous agents that can take action within prescribed limits.
- Salesforce and Microsoft have both highlighted their agent efforts in recent days.
Between the lines: One of the key questions for businesses is whether the productivity assistants offered by Microsoft, Google and others are worth paying an extra monthly fee of $20 to $30.
- Even modest productivity gains could offset the cost.
- Google says its large business customers are saving an average of 105 minutes per person per week.
Zoom in: In a test, the Clearwater, Florida-based moving company Pods outfitted its storage and moving trucks in the New York area with digital displays and used Google's AI to generate slogans that included local facts.
- "People always know us and have known us as storage in your driveway because of that container," Pods VP of brand and media Calvin Fields told Axios. "And so we're like, what if we use that container to be a billboard?"
- Training Gemini took some upfront effort, Fields said, but in the end Pods found the AI could generate the content much faster than people. (Humans did check Gemini's work, Fields said.)
