Screenshot by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET
When you think of Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology, you might only think of its Gemini chatbot. However, the company offers many other generative AI experiments that can help you improve your workflow, generate music, organize your documents, and much more. Although Google hasn’t officially released many of these projects, you can try them out through Google Labs, the company’s platform for testing ideas and products, which has just been revamped.
The new version, unveiled Tuesday, makes it easier to find and launch new experiences. The launch coincided with Google’s launch of several new AI experiments on Wednesday, including Project Mariner, Jules, Project Astra, Gemini in Colab, and more.
One of the best things about trying the latest Google Labs experiments is that they are constantly being updated to include new features. Another major advantage of Labs is that users can provide feedback. And this impacts how experiments are deployed and what changes are made before they are released.
1. NotebookLM
Screenshot by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET
In summer 2023, Google launched NotebookLM, its “AI-first Notebook,” which works with the content you type to summarize, explain, and provide key topics and questions you can ask to better understand the material.
You can insert a Google Doc, PDF, Google Slides, and URLs, then ask questions about the content or have NotebookLM automatically generate content. This feature can be useful if you are a student. You can enter all your class notes and documents into NotebookLM and the technology will help you stay organized and add AI assistance to your notes.
NotebookLM can generate guides, backgrounders, FAQs, summaries, and more. The technology can discuss the content with you and answer your questions. To test the features, I inserted a PDF of one of my articles, and within seconds, NotebookLM provided me with an accurate AI-generated summary. You can see the result in the image above.
The tool went viral thanks to its audio preview feature, which allows content to be discussed in engaging, AI-driven conversations. Discussions are led by two AI-generated moderators who use the context of your content to explain complex topics, make analogies, and continue the dialogue with you.
2. Illuminate
Screenshot by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET
Research articles tend to be long and use technical jargon that can be difficult to understand. Illuminate is a new experiment from Google Labs that aims to help you break down research articles into short audio conversations.
Illuminate uses AI to tailor content to your learning preferences so you can understand the material.
You can access the waitlist and learn more about Illuminate by visiting Google Labs.
3. GenType
Screenshot by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET
GenType is an AI alphabet generator that uses Imagen 2 to generate AI images for all 26 letters of the alphabet from a single prompt.
This experiment was designed when a Google employee wanted to use Imagen to help his children learn the alphabet visually by generating letters from familiar objects.
Although I don’t have a practical use case in everyday life, it’s still fun.
Join the waitlist for highly anticipated features
Many experiments have open waitlists due to high demand for some of the more advanced features. If you want to try them, don’t let this put you off, because you just need to sign up for a Google account and you don’t lose anything by waiting.
Here are some of the experiences on the waitlist:
- Gemini in Collabor – Experimental agent for data science
- Jules – Experimental agent for developers, capable of automating coding tasks in GitHub
- VideoFX – Text to video generator
- Ask Photos – Conversational search on your photos with Gemini
How to join Google Labs
If you want to try one of these or other upcoming experiments, sign up for Google Labs. Simply go to the Google Labs home page and click on the experiment you want to try.
The registration process may vary depending on experience. Typically, you will be prompted to sign in to your personal Google account or create a new one. Remember to use your account, as workplace accounts may block experimental features.
Other experiments have specific instructions for first-time users. If the experience you signed up for has a waitlist, keep a close eye on your email as you will be notified when you are removed from the list.
