Google Postpones Launch of AI Offering Gemini Due to Non-English Query Challenges

Google has postponed the launch of Gemini, its highly anticipated artificial intelligence (AI) offering.

The decision comes as the company faced challenges with non-English queries, prompting Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai to cancel the planned in-person launches in California, New York and Washington, according to a Seeking Alpha report on Monday (Dec. 4).

Sources within Google revealed that the AI technology in Gemini did not reliably handle certain non-English queries, leading to the postponement, per the report. The company found difficulties in accurately processing and responding to these queries, highlighting the challenges faced by tech companies in developing AI systems that can effectively handle input from other languages.

The delay in Gemini’s launch is seen as an attempt by Google to catch up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has gained attention for its advanced language processing capabilities. Gemini is expected to be a crucial addition to Google’s AI portfolio as the company aims to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving AI market.

Google had originally planned to launch Gemini this fall, PYMNTS reported in August.

The Big Tech firm planned for Gemini to power its chatbot Bard, a competitor of ChatGPT, as well as enterprise applications such as Google Docs and Slides.

“While still early, we’re already seeing impressive multimodal capabilities not seen in prior models,” Pichai said in a May blog post announcing the technology. “Once fine-tuned and rigorously tested for safety, Gemini will be available at various sizes and capabilities, just like PaLM 2.”

The delay of Gemini’s launch comes as OpenAI also recently pushed back of unveiling of its custom GPT store.

OpenAI announced the store in November with plans to launch later that month, but its rollout has now been delayed until early 2024, PYMNTS reported.

The company attributed the delay to its ongoing efforts to make improvements to the GPTs, per the report.

When announcing the GPT store, OpenAI said at the time that it would collect the best customer GPT apps and share revenues with its most popular creators.

The store will initially feature AI creations from verified builders but will eventually open to the broader public, PYMNTS reported.

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