Google is determined to put AI everywhere! Including in Google Messages, its messaging app, which will soon integrate its Gemini chatbot to write messages and help you adjust the tone of your discussions.
With the integration of Gemini Pro, one of the company’s most powerful large language models (LLM), into its AI a few weeks ago, Google decided to rename its chatbot Bard to Gemini in order to clarify its services (see our article). In the race for artificial intelligence, the Mountain View giant plans to integrate Gemini into all of its tools and services, whether on mobile, on connected objects or even online. For several weeks, rumors have been circulating that the company was going to integrate it with Google Messages, its instant messaging system supporting SMS, MMS and RCS. During MWC 2024 in Barcelona, it officially confirmed that its deployment had begun. So, AI will help you “write messages, brainstorm ideas, plan events, or just have a fun conversation”.
Gemini in Google Messages: an assistant at your fingertips
“You can chat with Gemini in the Google Messages app to write messages, brainstorm ideas, plan events, or just have a fun conversation”can we read on the support page. More generally, the tool should be able to achieve what AI assistants that are driven by generative artificial intelligence do. In addition to offering writing assistance, Google Gemini will feed on the images you offer it, but it will not be able to generate new ones for you for the moment – given the latest controversies on black Nazis and other representations erroneous histories, it is perhaps not so bad.
Our colleagues from 9to5google were able to have an overview of the integration of the chatbot, when it was still called Bard. According to the APK – a collection of files for Android (“package”) assembled and compressed in the form of an archive in ZIP format – which they managed to get their hands on, all you need is to chat with the AI, to start the discussion with the contact present in your conversations list. Gemini should indeed appear when you click on “New conversation”. It will then appear as a standalone chat with the Gemini logo and name. Because, yes, Google seems to have focused on simplicity for this next update. What’s better than chatting with an assistant accessible in the same place as all other conversations?
Be careful though, this discussion will not be protected in the same way by the Mountain View giant. If exchanges with your loved ones are end-to-end encrypted using Google Messages RCS technology, this is not the case for discussions with the bot. But that’s not all ! Your queries could even be read by a human. As 9to5Google reports, Google explains that Bard is a model based on machine learning. In other words, employees could be required to collect data in order to train their tool. This data could then be kept for a maximum period of three years.
The Gemini Google Messages integration is available in beta for 165 countries in English, but not yet in Europe. And to benefit from it now, you must also use a Google Pixel 6, a Pixel Fold or even a Samsung Galaxy S22, Z Flip or Z Fold, be registered in the American giant’s beta test program and have a Google account in English. We therefore hope that Google will quickly lift these constraints to be able to offer its AI to everyone, including in France!