Shares of Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL), experienced a surge on Tuesday, riding high on the wave of excitement generated by the introduction of a series of new artificial intelligence (AI) offerings for Google Cloud and Workspace enterprise platforms. The occasion for this major unveiling was Google’s annual Google Cloud Next event, a notable occurrence that marks the company’s first in-person event since 2019. The event, currently underway in San Francisco, is packed with a slew of announcements designed to underscore Google’s cloud platform prowess and AI capabilities, as it continues to engage in fierce competition with cloud rivals Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Of particular interest in this grand showcase is the unveiling of pricing details for Google’s AI-focused Workspace features, complemented by the introduction of fresh AI training models and upgraded AI-centric infrastructure. This strategic move by Google aims to consolidate its position in the rapidly evolving cloud space, keeping pace with its industry adversaries.
As of 12 p.m. ET Tuesday, shares of Google were on an upward trajectory, with a surge of up to 4%, driven by the market’s positive response to these developments.
Having reported its second consecutive quarter of profitability for its cloud division in July, Google announced that the segment had achieved an impressive annual revenue run rate of $32 billion. The unveiling of these latest AI-driven products is envisioned as a critical means to sustain and enhance this upward momentum.
Of all the revelations at the event, one of the most intriguing announcements was the pricing of Google’s AI-powered Duet AI in Workspace, set at a competitive rate of $30 per user per month. This price point mirrors that of Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 Copilot, positioning both products as AI aides tailored to enhance the productivity of professionals engaged in tasks like email correspondence, spreadsheet management, document creation, and meeting participation.
Duet AI in Workspace boasts a unique ability to craft comprehensive summaries from diverse sources within a single document. Google envisions its utility in scenarios such as compiling financial performance presentations, where the AI generates summaries replete with text, charts, images, and data derived from Gmail and Google Drive sources.
Expanding beyond its utility in presentation preparation, Duet AI in Google Meet offers enhancements that go beyond appearances. It promises to enhance participants’ visual and auditory presence in video meetings, in addition to capturing crucial meeting content such as notes, action items, and video snippets when instructed to “take notes for me.” An ambitious claim by Google asserts that Duet AI can even attend meetings on behalf of users and subsequently provide detailed summaries of the discussions – a feature, though potentially time-saving, might raise eyebrows in certain professional settings.
Google’s pursuit of AI integration doesn’t end with Workspace; it extends to Google Chat as well, marked by the introduction of Duet AI in Google Chat. This augmentation brings both aesthetic and functional improvements, enabling users to request AI-generated summaries for lengthy text threads and documents.
Underpinning this AI-focused drive is Google’s commitment to bolster application development with Duet AI in Google Cloud. Furthermore, on the infrastructure front, Google revealed its inclusion of new AI training models in the Vertex AI platform, featuring Meta’s Llama 2 and Code Llama.
These strides taken by Google align with its overarching mission to enhance the competitiveness of its Google Cloud Platform, thereby narrowing the gap between it and industry leaders such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure. Microsoft’s proactive integration of AI capabilities across its cloud and productivity products has been a defining characteristic of its strategy, a move that has garnered significant attention and market share. In response, Google, a pioneer in transformer technology that underpins generative AI models, has responded with vigor, dedicating substantial focus to AI advancements during its Google I/O conference in May.
As the Google Cloud Next event continues to unfold, the tech world watches closely, eager to witness the ongoing evolution of Google’s AI ecosystem and its bid to assert its dominance in the competitive cloud landscape.
Source: Yahoo Finance
