Google has significantly upgraded the AI avatar features in its video creation tool Google Vids. A post in Google Workspace Updates explains that the changes include more preset avatars, broader language support, and new ways to control custom avatars in generated video clips. The number of preset avatars has grown from 23 to 53. The …
ChatGPT is still the world’s most popular AI assistant, but its grip on the market is loosening. For the first time since its launch, OpenAI’s chatbot has fallen below 50% market share, as rivals like Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude attract a growing share of users. Ivan Mehta reports for TechCrunch, citing data from analytics …
Google has released DiffusionGemma, an experimental open AI model that takes a fundamentally different approach to generating text. Brendan O’Donoghue and Sebastian Flennerhag write for Google’s blog The Keyword that the model can produce text up to four times faster than conventional large language models on dedicated GPUs. It is available under an Apache 2.0 …
A German court has ruled that Google is directly liable for false and defamatory claims made by its AI Overviews feature in search results. Matthias Bastian reports for The Decoder that the Regional Court of Munich issued a temporary injunction against Google after its AI-generated summaries falsely linked two Munich-based publishers to scams and dubious …
Google has released Gemma 4 12B, an open-weights multimodal AI model designed to run entirely on a standard laptop with 16 GB of VRAM or unified memory. The model is available now for free download and marks a notable step toward powerful AI that operates offline, without sending data to the cloud. The model is …
Google has announced five commitments around water use at its data centers, including a pledge to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030. Lauren Feiner reports for The Verge that the company published the commitments in a blog post and is framing them as a model other data center operators could follow. Concern about …
Google is giving website owners the option to exclude their content from its AI-generated search features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. The move follows a ruling by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), as Igor Bonifacic reports for Engadget and Imran Rahman-Jones reports for BBC News. Google plans to add a toggle inside …
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has defended his company’s AI-driven transformation of Search while acknowledging growing publisher concerns about vanishing web traffic. Nilay Patel posts for The Verge’s Decoder podcast an in-depth conversation with Pichai after Google’s annual I/O developer conference, covering everything from internal restructuring to the timeline for artificial general intelligence (AGI). …
Google’s redesigned search experience is experiencing novel problems: users discovered that searching for the word “disregard” and similar terms can return a nearly empty AI-generated response. Russell Brandom reports for TechCrunch that the new interface buries traditional search results far below the fold, replacing them with AI summaries that, in this case, provide no useful …
Google has launched a new image creation and editing tool called Google Pics. The app is built on Google’s Nano Banana AI model and combines generative AI with detailed editing controls. The tool allows users to create images from scratch or edit existing photos. Key features include: Google says the app is designed to give …