The AI Rush Continues: Google, Microsoft, Apple and More Release Major Updates

Google Goes All In On Gemini While Microsoft, Apple, Midjourney, YouTube & More Unleash Major AI Upgrades

Several major technology companies made significant AI announcements and updates this week, pushing the capabilities of artificial intelligence even further.

Google Launches Gemini Ultra and Rebrands All AI Products as Gemini

Google has gone all-in on its conversational AI agent Gemini. The company announced the launch of Gemini Ultra, an upgraded version that is “far more capable at highly complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions, and creative collaboration.”

Gemini Ultra is part of Gemini Advanced, which costs $20 per month. It uses the latest Gemini 1.0 model that Google previewed last year as being dramatically better than chatGPT. Early tests show it is very fast and adept at creative writing, but still struggles with some complex problem-solving compared to chatGPT. However, Google will likely rapidly improve Gemini Ultra in the coming months.

Along with the Gemini Ultra launch, Google rebranded all its AI products and initiatives under the Gemini name. So Google's original conversational agent Bard is now simply called Gemini. The company seems ready to challenge OpenAI's dominance in the conversational AI space.

Microsoft Beefs Up Co-Pilot with Powerful Image Features

Not to be outdone, Microsoft also upgraded its Co-Pilot agent for developers. Co-Pilot now has some very impressive image generation and manipulation capabilities. For example, it can intelligently segment images, allowing you to selectively colorize, blur or pop elements of a picture.

You can also apply different artistic filters like watercolor or pixel art. These features rival what DALL-E 2 can do. Microsoft is clearly leveraging the power of its new Designer AI tool.

We can likely expect more Co-Pilot announcements soon. Microsoft has a Co-Pilot ad slotted for the upcoming Super Bowl, aiming to showcase what the agent can really achieve.

Midjourney Launches Public Website for AI Art Creation

Until now, Midjourney's powerful AI art generator could only be accessed through its Discord server. But Midjourney unveiled an open public website this week, allowing anyone to create AI art without a Discord account.

The website provides much of the same functionality for generating images from text prompts. You can adjust parameters like image size, style and quality before hitting generate.

One nifty new feature is the ability to provide a sample image to define the style you want the art generated in. This "style reference" ensures consistency across multiple images.

For now, Midjourney's public site still requires an invite code. But opening access beyond Discord is a major step towards mainstream adoption. Over 200,000 people are already on the waitlist.

Apple Reveals ML-Guided Image Editing Model

Apple published research this week on a new AI technique for editing images called ML-Guided Image Editing. The model allows making sophisticated tweaks to photos through natural language prompts.

For example, you could ask it to "make this pizza healthier" and it will add vegetables on top. Or instruct it to "increase the light contrast" and it will automatically adjust brightness and shadows.

This technology could eventually make its way into Apple's consumer products like the iPhone's camera app. It demonstrates Apple's continued innovation in the AI space.

YouTube Outlines AI-Focused 2024 Vision

With AI playing a growing role in content creation and recommendation, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan laid out how AI will shape the platform's future. Expanding the creative use of AI is apparently YouTube's #1 priority for 2024.

Over the next two years, expect more AI experiments from YouTube like automatically generated video previews, personalized recommendations, and summarized comments and captions. YouTube is also investing $135 million in an "AI incubator" to fund emerging generative AI companies.

As AI transforms industries, big tech companies are battling each other to become leaders in this space. So expect many more advances in artificial intelligence through 2023 and beyond!