Google says closer collaboration between its cloud computing unit and AI research lab is driving faster progress in artificial intelligence (AI).
Google Cloud signed deals to integrate its latest AI models into popular consumer products and shared more than 75 customer stories, including from social app Snapchat and storage company Pods, the company said as part of its virtual Gemini at Work event. The company also unveiled new versions of its AI model, Gemini.
Collaboration between Google Cloud and the company’s research arm, Google DeepMind, could help bring products to market faster, executives said. That’s important as investors press parent company Alphabet Inc. to show how AI investments can lead to new business.
It’s a closer collaboration between two business units that both have something to prove. Google Cloud, which has long trailed Amazon.com and Microsoft in the cloud computing market, is trying to capitalize on the excitement around generative AI to expand its business. Google’s AI researchers invented much of the technology underpinning the latest wave of AI, but after OpenAI surpassed Google with the launch of ChatGPT, the search giant is under pressure to smooth the path from research labs to products for consumers and enterprises.
As progress in this area accelerates, Google’s AI researchers need to “pick up the pace,” said Eli Collins, vice president of product at DeepMind.
“The researchers are incredibly motivated by seeing their work in the hands of real products and users,” Collins said. “That’s also been a culture change, not just within Google but across the research community, where so many of the leading research labs are really product companies now.”
Google has lost a string of researchers in recent years who were impatient to launch products. But one of the most outspoken members of that camp, Noam Shazeer, has recently returned.
Silicon Valley companies have struggled to unite research and product teams because they often have divergent interests, said Sharon Zhou, CEO of Lamini Inc., a startup that helps companies use AI systems known as large language models.
“Production AI and AI research teams are notoriously difficult to get to work well together,” Zhou wrote in a post. “Whoever figures out how to make these teams work well together will be an industry leader. They are under great strain at many companies, from Google to their competitors.”
In an interview earlier this year, Google Cloud Chief Executive Officer Thomas Kurian said that strengthening ties with DeepMind has been a key focus, noting that teams in London, Seattle and the Bay Area work closely together, sometimes side by side. In one session in June, Google Cloud employees presented customers’ experiences with generative AI to DeepMind researchers, and some of the features the teams discussed were included in Tuesday’s mockup launch, a Google Cloud spokeswoman said.
To sharpen the focus on the product, DeepMind researchers are working with enterprise customers in addition to Google Cloud, Collins said. In conversations with customer Snap Inc., which owns Snapchat, the company mentioned how users often turned to the app for homework help. DeepMind adjusted its models accordingly, Collins said.
“Cloud customers are our customers,” Collins said.
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