
Google is bringing an ‘Agent Mode' to the Gemini app
Project Mariner, Google's AI agent tool that can search the web for you, can now oversee up to 10 simultaneous tasks, Pichai said.
Pichai also shared details on a feature called Teach and Repeat. 'This is where you can show your task once, and it learns a plan for similar tasks in the future.' Project Mariner will be available 'more broadly' this summer, he said.
With Agent Mode in the Gemini app, you'll be able to give it a task to complete and the tool will go off and do it on your behalf, like with other AI agents. Pichai discussed an example of two people looking for an apartment in Austin, Texas. He said that the agent can find listings from sites like Zillow and use Project Mariner when needed to adjust specific filters.
An 'experimental' version of Agent Mode will be 'coming soon' for subscribers, Pichai said.

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Business Insider
24 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Inside the battle over Microsoft's access to OpenAI's technology
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Microsoft found out about the demo, and pressured OpenAI executives, including then-technology boss Mira Murati, to get access to the code so Microsoft could do its own announcement, the people said. The company did not want to appear flat-footed to investors, to whom the company has to justify its $13 billion investment in OpenAI, they said. The example illustrates the ongoing complexity of Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI, and why access to the AI startup's technology is a core issue as the companies renegotiate their agreement. OpenAI needs Microsoft's blessing for a corporate restructuring. To get that, OpenAI may need to convince Microsoft to change or give up some pretty sweet terms: Microsoft has access to much of OpenAI's technology, exclusive rights to sell it on Azure, first right of refusal to provide computing resources, and a revenue-sharing agreement worth billions of dollars. Lots of thorny details about points of contention in the negotiations have made recent headlines — a looming, existential clause OpenAI could activate to cut off Microsoft's access, a "nuclear option" reportedly considered by OpenAI executives to accuse Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior, and a report that Microsoft was prepared to walk away from the renegotiations. In response to those reports, Microsoft and OpenAI released a joint statement saying, "Talks are ongoing and we are optimistic we will continue to build together for years to come." People close to Microsoft's side of the negotiating talks tell BI the software giant is unlikely to walk away because it is deeply reliant on OpenAI's intellectual property, and the negotiations are an opportunity to improve and expand its access to this technology. 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OpenAI defines AGI as "a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable works." While OpenAI could declare AGI, the concept is so open to interpretation that Microsoft could sue and easily tie the company up in a legal battle for years, the people said. There's another version of the clause, "sufficient AGI," that OpenAI could declare when it builds a technology capable of achieving a certain level of profits, but Microsoft has to sign off on that. Another apparent sticking point in the negotiations has centered on OpenAI's desire to acquire AI coding assistant startup Windsurf. Under the current agreement, that would give Microsoft access to Windsurf's technology. Microsoft has said it would agree to the acquisition, but Windsurf's CEO doesn't want the company's technology to be shared with Microsoft, one of the people said. 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WIRED
an hour ago
- WIRED
AI Videos of Black Women Depicted as Primates Are Going Viral
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AI-generated bigfoot vlogs were even used by Google as a selling point in ads promoting the new feature. With 'bigfoot baddies,' online creators are taking what was a fairly innocuous trend on social media and repurposing it to dehumanize Black women. 'There's a historical precedent behind why this is offensive. In the early days of slavery, Black people were overexaggerated in illustrations to emphasize primal characteristics,' says Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. 'It's both disgusting and disturbing that these racial tropes and images are readily available to be designed and distributed on online platforms,' says Turner Lee. One of the most popular Instagram accounts posting these generated clips has five videos with over a million views, less than a month after the account's first post. 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Back in 2023, as an AI-generated video of Will Smith eating spaghetti was going viral on social media, WIRED senior writer Jason Parham dissected the video as a form of minstrelsy. 'This coming age of new minstrelsy will assume an even more cunning chameleon form, adaptive and immediate in its guile, from humanistic deepfakes and spot-on voice manipulations to all manner of digital deceit,' Parham wrote at the time. With this latest wave of generative AI video tools, helmed by Google's Veo 3, it's never been easier to produce photorealistic AI videos. The ease of generating numerous videos paired with the consistent spread of AI slop on social media platforms is part of what's popularized these 'bigfoot baddies.' More social media trends where creators use AI to attack minority groups will likely continue. 'AI has not only made it easier to manipulate images,' Turner Lee says. 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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Glyph Matrix On Nothing Phone 3: Everything You Can Do With The New Interface
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