On the Google I/O 2024 developer conference on Tuesday, Google announced that it’s constructing Gemini Nano, the smallest of its AI models, directly into the Chrome desktop client, starting with Chrome 126.
This, the corporate says, will enable developers to make use of the on-device model to power their very own AI features. Google itself plans to make use of this latest capability to power features like the present “help me write” tool from Workspace Lab in Gmail, for instance.
The corporate says it’s the recent work on WebGPU and WASM support in Chrome that allows these models to run at an inexpensive speed on a large set of hardware.
In a briefing ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Jon Dahlke, Google’s director of product management for Chrome, noted that Google was in talks with other browser vendors to enable this — or an identical feature — of their browsers, too.
“We now have began to have interaction with other browsers and will probably be opening up an early preview program for developers,” Dahlke wrote in Tuesday’s announcement. “With webGPU, WASM, and Gemini built into Chrome, we imagine the online IS AI-ready. “
I doubt that the majority Chrome competitors would need to solely bet on Google’s AI models, though. What makes more sense is to enable browsers — and developers — to run the model of their selection. Google would clearly opt to run Gemini for its applications, but these models are sufficiently small to permit developers to decide on whichever one they need for his or her applications.
Google’s bet, nonetheless, is to enable a variety of high-level APIs in Chrome to translate, caption and transcribe text within the browser using its Gemini models.
“To deliver this feature, we fine-tuned our best version of Gemini and optimized Chrome,” Dahlke said during today’s developer keynote at I/O. “Now we wish to provide you access to Gemini models in Chrome. Our vision to provide you probably the most power AI models in Chrome to succeed in billions of users without having to fret about prompt engineering, fine-tuning, capability and value. All you’ve got to do is call just a few high-level APIs – translate, caption, transcribe. It is a big shift for the online and we wish to get it right.”
For developers, Google is now also using the built-in Gemini Nano model to power some latest features within the Chrome DevTools Console. Because of this, the Chrome dev tools can now explain errors and supply debugging solutions right within the console.
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