Google Launches New AI Image Generators and Expands Gemini Pro Availability in Bard

Google is launching today ImageFX, a standalone AI-powered image generation tool powered by Imagen 2, the latest text-to-image model from Google’s DeepMind team. Google’s Bard chatbot is also getting new image generation capabilities powered by the same Imagen 2 model, and the company is also expanding the availability of its new Gemini Pro multimodal large language model in Bard.

ImageFX, Google’s new text-to-image generator is available in the company’s AI Test Kitchen alongside MusicFX and TextFX, two other generative AI experiments. “Designed for experimentation and creativity, ImageFX lets you create images with a simple text prompt, then easily modify them with a new take on prompting using expressive chips,” Google explained today.

If Google previously brought image generation capabilities to its new Search Generative Experience, its standalone Bard chatbot didn’t have that yet. That’s finally changing today as Imagen 2, Google’s latest text-to-image model is now available across ImageFX, the Google Search Generative Experience, and Bard. Image generation in Google Bard is free, but it’s currently restricted to English. It works by just typing a simple prompt, similar to how ImageFX, OpenAI’s DALL·E, and Microsoft Designer work.

Speaking about Imagen 2, Google said that it’s been trained on higher-quality images, resulting in more accurate creations. “It’s more accurate than our previous system at processing details, and it’s more capable at capturing nuance — delivering more photorealistic images across a range of styles and use cases,” the company said today.

Lastly, Gemini Pro, which was released to enterprise users and developers in December is now available in any language and country Bard currently supports. According to Google, Gemini Pro should be far better at understanding prompts, summarizing content, and creating code.

Google pointed out today that Bard with Gemini Pro ended up as one of the top-performing chatbots in recent blind tests made by third-party raters. Google is also already working on Gemini Ultra, the company’s most capable generative AI model that will soon be available through a trusted tester program.