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Google has been trying to play catch-up to OpenAI in generative artificial intelligence. It appears to finally be gaining ground with users.
The company’s Gemini app took the top spot among free apps on Apple’s App Store this week, leapfrogging ChatGPT, which kickstarted the generative AI boom almost three years ago.
Google’s Gemini AI model has seen some recent updates that have lured new users. Last month, Google launched an updated version of its “Flash” AI model, called 2.5 Flash Image, which has a new image editing feature called Nano Banana. The app allows users to blend multiple photos together and use prompts to create things such as digital figurines of photos that a user uploads.
The product helped bring in 13 million new users to the Gemini app in four days, according to a social media post last week from Josh Woodward, head of the Gemini app, bringing the total to 23 million since launch. Users have uploaded 500 million images into the app, the post said.
Woodward said in a separate post that his team had to enact temporary usage limits over the weekend after experiencing excess demand.
As of July, the last time the company disclosed numbers, the Gemini app had more than 450 million monthly active users, CEO Sundar Pichai said in the company’s second-quarter earnings report.
Google’s improved traction in consumer AI has also attracted investor interest.
On Monday, Alphabet became the fourth member of the $3 trillion club, joining Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple. Alphabet shares are up 33% this year, compared with a 16% gain for the Nasdaq.
The company also got a boost earlier this month from a favorable antitrust ruling that allows Google to keep its Chrome browser.
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