There can be no doubt that yesterday’s big Made By Google hardware event was designed to take the wind out of Apple’s sails.
Google typically unveils its latest Pixel smartphones in the fall, after Apple’s September iPhone reveal; we are very much still enjoying the summer. And Google missed no opportunity to praise the AI capabilities, powered by the company’s own Gemini models, in its new devices—and in other capable Android phones.
“Gemini is deeply integrated with Google apps and Android and can handle complex queries without hand-off to third-party AI providers you may not know or trust,” Google said pointedly in a blog post. It was a likely reference to the fact that Apple, still lacking a powerful AI model of its own, will have to rely on OpenAI and potentially other providers for the heavyweight AI functionality in its upcoming iPhones.
There’s an element of FUD in Google’s messaging here, given that Apple has created a pretty plausible security framework for using third-party AI providers to handle queries in a trustworthy way. But nonetheless, Google does hold a clear advantage over Apple by having developed its own models.
Google also stole a march on OpenAI by yesterday rolling out Gemini Live, its conversational chatbot, which offers very similar functionality to the voice-chat features for ChatGPT that OpenAI has demonstrated but not yet released. According to TechCrunch, Gemini Live is impressive, though it does make stuff up sometimes. The Verge says it’s prone to mansplaining.
Gemini Live will feature in the new Pixel Buds Pro 2 earphones, which now feature a variant of Google’s custom Tensor AI chip. This is apparently useful for better noise cancellation.
Of course, the stars of the hardware show were the handsets—the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold—which run Google’s beefy Tensor G4 processor and come with not only Gemini Live, but also the multimodal version of the on-device Gemini Nano model. This should be able to handle image, audio, and speech inputs as well as text, and it will be very interesting to see how it stacks up against the on-device “Apple Intelligence” functionality in this year’s iPhones.
With Gemini Live coming to other Android handsets, including those from top manufacturer Samsung, Google’s AI efforts clearly have a lot of momentum and Apple’s response will need to be strong. Given that many Apple Intelligence features won’t be available on the upcoming iOS 18 when it first comes out, it looks like Google will have the upper hand for a while.
However, that doesn’t mean all is well in Google-land. A court found last week that Google’s had used its monopolization of the online search market to break antitrust law and, while the judge is yet to detail the remedies for this lawbreaking, Bloomberg now reports that the Justice Department may push for a Google breakup. DOJ insiders told the publication that they could seek the divestment of the Android operating system and Chrome browser, and/or Google’s AdWords platform.
I still can’t quite believe a Google breakup is really on the cards—the government did once try to do this to Microsoft and failed—but if Google were to lose control of Android, that could mean losing the primary vehicle for its AI ambitions. So stay tuned.
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David Meyer
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