It's been a big month for generative AI updates! Back on May 13, ChatGPT announced ChatGPT-4o (as in "Omni"), a "new flagship model that can reason across audio, vision, and text in real time." In various short videos, that new "reasoning" was demonstrated in pretty remarkable ways. Fire up the app on your laptop, and it actively listens and even participate in your meeting (providing insights and summaries), or it can tutor you on understanding a math problem. Open it on your phone, and it can translate between two speakers in real time, referee two people playing rock-paper-scissors, or even make a new song while harmonizing with a second ChatGPT AI. Additionally, the lag of input to output is reducing down in time so much that interacting with ChatGPT will start to feel like a human in natural conversation.
It's another example of ChatGPT seemingly leapfrogging its competition. Since November 2022 when ChatGPT first broke through to the general public, other major generative AI platforms have come forward, but without as much fanfare. Microsoft's Copilot has an attractive user interface and, among other features, can generate accurate images inside of itself, allows voice-to-text input, and provides hyperlinks in responses, yet I hardly hear it as a person's first AI platform of choice. Google's AI went from Bard to the renamed branding of Gemini and was much like Copilot in its features. While Gemini and Copilot allows uploading of images, you can upload both text and image files to analyze or alter in ChatGPT. (A quick disclaimer: as you likely already know, AI is sometimes wrong and hallucinates. When it comes to inputs, I highly recommend trying prompts in multiple genAI platforms and comparing the results.)
But that was then, this is now. Gemini may have finally played its ace card with its latest upgrade, announced in a live webinar yesterday. (By registering, you can get access to the 45 minute archived recording.) Finally, Google seems poised to lean in on two of its major assets: its near-monopoly of education with its variously tiered domains, and having the world's most popular cloud-based productivity app suite.
Here are some of the highlights from the webinar. (Images are screenshots from the webinar unless otherwise noted.)
There is now a premium version of Gemini AI, one that can be incorporated across some of the core Google apps: Docs, Gmail, Slides, Sheets, and Meet. With the upgrade, AI help is just a button click away. This integration is likely a game-changer. Why pop open a new tab for another genAI when Gemini could be built right in?
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| From the Google course "Get Started with Gemini for Google Workplace." |
However, for educational domain customers, Google recognizes there are special needs. Gemini will now offer, free of charge, several assurances: the data inputted from students and teachers will not be human reviewed, not be used to train AI models, and not be shared outside of their domain. (These three highly sought features are coming "soon," a phrase used several times in the webinar and in its various promotional material graphics.) For educators with privacy concerns, this alone might be a compelling reason for a school district to recommend Gemini over other genAI tools. Vivek Chachcha, Product Manager of Gemini Education, promises that the AI tool will help "save time," "make learning more personal," "inspire creativity," and help students "learn confidently" (by "empower[ing] students with guided support").
The webinar included several video examples of Gemini at work in various Google apps, and some shorter excepts of these videos are available separately on its Google for Education YouTube channel.
Although this video shows examples from higher ed, they could apply to anyone needing to increase their productivity and effectiveness (2:58):
In this clip, an instructional coach uses Gemini to draft a professional development session agenda in Sheets (35 seconds):
In this last clip, a teacher inside of a Doc creates a first draft of feedback on a student's poem (47 seconds):
In a related tool revealed earlier this week, Google also has a "side panel" feature that will incorporate Gemini. This will basically allow the AI to look across your various apps and files in Google Drive in order to complete the task. (Currently, access to this side panel requires being enrolled in Google Workspace Labs, which will likely need the approval of your domain's admin.)
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| An example of Gemini's side panel, inside of my personal Google Drive. |
Yes, yes, you may be saying, but what about the price?
First, it may be helpful to compare the current free Gemini chat AI (accessible in a separate tab, at its own URL) versus the new paid Gemini for Workspace:
Next, note that these paid licenses come at two different tiers of pricing. (The upper "Premium" license includes Gemini being able to have "advanced meetings" in Google Meet, a potential nod to the ChatGPT meeting summary/interaction feature mentioned at the start of this blog entry.) The good news: there is no minimum number of licenses you can purchase for users, and there is a discount if you order with a yearlong commitment before August 23, 2024. The bad news: these premium features do not come automatically with any current upgraded Education domain tier, although Education Plus customers can qualify for a bit more of a discount, again if ordered before August 23.
- For tech and IT friends, read this blog entry from "Workspace Updates" (5/23/24) for an official Google breakdown of Gemini for Google Workspace for Education's coming upgrades.
- If you're interested in more of a general audience narrative of what's happening with Gemini in education, here's an entry from Google's blog on 5/16/24.
- Looking for even more ways to use Gemini for Google Workspace in education, from Google itself? Check out these Slides from April 2024. The resources and tips include advice on writing better prompts, multiple visual examples of how to use Gemini in various apps, and help for domain admin.
- Google offers some free online courses. Here's one I just completed myself, and I highly recommend for a low-stress walkthrough: "Get Started with Gemini for Google Workspace." (It requires logging in and allowing ExceedLMS to access your Google account, but again, it's free!)
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