The free version of Google’s generative artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, Gemini, is apparently getting faster, more helpful responses.
Google announced Thursday its fastest, most cost-efficient model, 1.5 Flash, is now available in the unpaid version of its Gemini chatbot in over 40 languages and more than 230 countries and territories. Gemini 1.5 Flash was announced in May at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference, and has only been available through a limited public preview and to developers using Google’s API.
With 1.5 Flash, Gemini will have “quicker and more helpful responses,” Google said, adding that users will notice improvements to Gemini’s reasoning and image processing abilities. Users will also be able to have longer, more complex conversations with Gemini, due to the quadrupling of its tokens, or the smallest unit of information an AI model processes —for example, a word or phrase.
In the near future, Google said it is adding the ability to upload files to the free-version of Gemini from Google Drive or a user’s device.
“That means you’ll be able to do things like upload your economics study guide and ask Gemini to create practice questions,” Google said.
In June, Google said 1.5 Flash is 20% faster than OpenAI’s most advanced model, ChatGPT-4o, and 40% faster than GPT-3.5, which was powering ChatGPT. “It’s the fastest model at the best price to performance option in the market,” Google Cloud chief executive Thomas Kurian said.
The upgrade to Google’s free version of its chatbot comes as investors scrutinize its high levels of spending on AI. Earlier this week, Google’s stock price sank amid worries that it is spending too much on AI-related infrastructure. However, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, beat Wall Street’s expectations for the second quarter, reporting sales of nearly $85 billion.