Google’s new Project Astra could be generative AI’s killer app

MIT Technology Review Tried the Astra in a behind-closed-doors live demonstration last week. It’s an amazing experience, but there’s a gulf between a perfect pitch and a live demo.

Astra uses Gemini 2.0’s built-in agent framework to answer questions and perform tasks through text, speech, images and video, calling existing Google applications such as Search, Maps and Lens when needed. “It brings together some of the most powerful information retrieval systems of our time,” said Astra product manager Bibo Xu.

Gemini 2.0 and Astra include Mariner, a new agent built on Gemini that browses the web for you; Jules, a new coding assistant powered by Gemini; and Gemini for Games, an experimental assistant that lets you browse the web for you. Chat with it while playing video games and ask for tips.

(Let’s not forget, last week Google DeepMind also announced I understanda new video generation model; Figure 3a new version of its image generation model; and willowa new type of chip for quantum computers. call. Meanwhile, CEO Demis Hassabis Received his in Sweden yesterday Nobel Prize.)

GoogleDeepMind claims that Gemini 2.0 is twice as fast as the previous version, Gemini 1.5, and outperforms Gemini 2.0 on several standard benchmarks, including MMLU-Pro, a set of multiple choices designed to test the capabilities of large language models Questions cover a range of subjects, from mathematics and physics to health, psychology and philosophy.

But the gap between high-end models like Gemini 2.0 and those from rival labs like OpenAI and Anthropic is now small. Today, the advancement of large language models is less about how good they are and more about what you can do with them.

This is where agents come into play.

Experience the Astra project for yourself

Last week, I was ushered through an unmarked door on the upper floor of a building in London’s King’s Cross district and into a room that had the air of a secret plan. The word “ASTRA” is printed in giant letters on one wall. Xu’s dog, Charlie, of the project A mascot indeedroaming between desks, researchers and engineers are busy developing the products on which Google is betting its future.