Google just made its AI assistant a lot more personal. The company is rolling out Gemini 2.0 across web and mobile apps, with a suite of upgrades that transform the chatbot from a know-it-all into more of a digital confidant.
The headline feature is a new experimental personalization model that taps into your Search history to provide tailored responses. Want vacation ideas? Gemini will consider the destinations you've been researching. Looking to start a YouTube channel? It'll factor in your viewing habits.
"We're building an AI that doesn't just answer questions, but understands you," says Google, in what might be either exciting or mildly unsettling, depending on your perspective.
The rollout also democratizes some previously premium features. Deep Research capabilities, which generate detailed reports on complex topics, are now available to free users. There's also universal access to file uploads and Gemini Apps integration.
Google's model naming continues to be charmingly confusing. The new lineup includes "2.0 Flash," "2.0 Flash Thinking (experimental)," and "2.0 Pro (experimental)" - because apparently regular thinking wasn't flashy enough.
For power users, the Advanced tier now offers expanded language support, with chat memory features coming to over 45 languages. The system can also now handle larger documents with a massive 1M token context window.
The personalization features currently only use Search history, but Google hints at future integration with YouTube and Photos. Soon your AI assistant might reference that embarrassing dance video you posted in 2019 when suggesting new hobbies.
Why this matters:
- Google is shifting from pure information delivery to personalized AI assistance, marking a significant evolution in how we interact with AI
- The democratization of premium features suggests Google is feeling the competitive heat from other AI providers, benefiting regular users who get more powerful tools for free
