Google's $30-a-month 'Duet' AI will create annoying emails and images for you

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On Tuesday, Google announced the launch of its Duet AI assistant in its Workspace apps, including Docs, Gmail, Drive, Slides, and more. First announced in May at Google I/O, Duet has been in testing for some time, but is now available to paid business users of Google Workspace (what Google calls its suite of cloud productivity apps). for $30 per month on top of standard Workspace. fresh.

Duet isn't just one thing: it's more of a general brand name for a host of different AI features and probably should have been called "Google Kitchen Sink". It's probably several separate AI systems behind the scenes. For example, in Gmail, Duet can summarize a conversation thread in emails, use email content to write a memoir, or write a topic-based email. In Docs, he can write content such as a client proposal or a story. In Slides, it can generate custom visuals using an image synthesis model. In Sheets, it can help format existing spreadsheets or create a custom spreadsheet structure suitable for a particular task, such as project tracking.

An example of Google Duet in action (one many ), provided by Google. Google

Some Duet apps give the impression of confusion in branding. In Google Meet, Google claims that Duet AI can "ensure you look your best with studio looks, studio lighting, and studio sound," including "dynamic mosaics" and "face detection," functions that seem far removed from typical generative AI. capabilities, as well as automatically translated subtitles. It can also capture notes and videos, sending a summary to meeting participants. In fact, using Duet's "Join for Me" feature, Google says "Duet AI will be able to join the meeting on your behalf" and send you a recap later.

In Google Chat, Duet reads everything that happens in your conversations so you can “ask questions about your content, get a summary of documents shared in a space, and catch up on missed conversations.”

An example of Google Duet in action (one many ), provided by Google. Google

These are the marketing promises. So far, as spotted on social media, Duet seems pretty mundane in practice, like a mix of what we've seen with Google Bard and more complex versions of Google's existing autocomplete features. An author named Charlie Guo went through Duet's features in a helpful X thread, noting the clunky email composes of the AI ​​model. "The writing is almost painfully formal," he says.

In Slides, seventh-grade math teacher Alice Keeler asked Google Duet to create a robot teacher in front of a blackboard and posted it to X. The results are clunky and arguably unusable, full of problems developers found in image synthesis. work of art from 2022. Of course,...