Google is also introducing new features to Vertex AI to compete with rival platforms. Soon, Vertex customers will be able to use Gemini Pro to power custom-built conversational voice and chat agents and drive search summarization, recommendation, and answer generation features. Other additions to Vertex include Automatic Side by Side (Auto SxS) for on-demand model evaluation, models from third parties, and "step-by-step" distillation. Google is extending its indemnification policy to include outputs from PaLM 2 and its Imagen models, but not for customers using the Gemini Pro API until it launches publicly.
Key takeaways:
- Google's flagship gen AI model family, Gemini, is now available for Google Cloud customers using Vertex AI. A lightweight version, Gemini Pro, is now accessible in public preview via the new Gemini Pro API.
- The Gemini Pro API accepts text as input and generates text as output, similar to other generative text model APIs. An additional endpoint, Gemini Pro Vision, can process text and imagery, addressing previous criticisms of Gemini's lack of image processing capabilities.
- Developers can customize Gemini Pro to specific contexts and use cases using the same fine-tuning tools available for other Vertex-hosted models. Gemini Pro can also be connected to external APIs to perform particular actions or improve the accuracy and relevance of the model’s responses.
- Google is introducing other new features to Vertex AI to attract developers, including attractive pricing for Gemini Pro and the addition of models from third parties. However, Google's Vertex AI indemnification policy will not cover customers using the Gemini Pro API until it launches publicly.