Gemini 2.0 is here, just in time for what Google calls the “agentic era.” We’ll explore exactly what that means a bit later. But yes — whether you’re familiar with Gemini or not, 2.0 is more capable than its predecessors, promising some impressive changes and updates.
There’s a lot to cover about the new model itself and how its changes could impact marketers, so let’s talk about it.
What’s the “Agentic Era” Google Speaks Of?
I don’t mean to get all I, Robot (2004), but alas: Agentic refers to the ability to act independently and make choices. In the context of AI, an agentic AI can take initiative, solve problems and achieve goals without explicit human instruction.
Google says they’ve been investing in the development of more agentic AI models, ones that can “understand more about the world around you, think multiple steps ahead, and take action on your behalf, with your supervision.”
This is precisely the direction they’re going with Gemini 2.0, which is their most capable model yet and one that will bring Google closer to its vision of a “universal assistant”. The goal is an AI system that can act in the world and achieve goals, rather than merely answer questions or provide information.
Gemini 2.0 Release and Integrations
Gemini 2.0 takes everything 1.0 and 1.5 did well and makes them even better. Google’s talkin’ improved multimodal understanding, faster response times and more. While it’s essentially an upgraded version of previous models, there are some brand-new features and functionalities that are pretty handy:
- Improved multimodal understanding: Gemini 2.0 can better process and understand information from various sources, including text, images, and code.
- Enhanced agentic capabilities: Gemini 2.0 and its integrations can now take initiative, plan and solve problems more independently.
- New modalities: Gemini 2.0 can now generate images and audio, opening up new possibilities for creative applications.
- Faster response times: Gemini 2.0 Flash offers significantly faster response times, making it ideal for real-time interactions, such as with customer service chatbots.
- Expanded tool integration: Gemini 2.0 can now use a wider range of tools, including Google Search, Google Maps and others, to provide more comprehensive and relevant information.
What is Gemini 2.0 Flash?
Gemini 2.0 Flash is a specialized model that prioritizes speed and efficiency over raw power. It’s already available for developers through the Gemini API and to subscribers of Gemini Advanced and is expected to be publicly available in January 2025.
If you thought Gemini was already quick, 2.0 Flash promises to be quicker. The Flash version of Gemini is uniquely optimized for chat-based interfaces, making it ideal for tasks that require fast turnaround times, such as real-time customer service interactions or quick information retrieval. The flagship Gemini 2.0 model still wins in terms of raw capabilities, but it excels at providing fast and accurate information, which is what it was designed to do.
Deep Research
Marketers and market researchers, buckle up. In tandem with the Gemini 2.0 reveal, Google also put a spotlight on a new feature they’re calling Deep Research, which is powered by Gemini 2.0. If you’ve been using generative AI as a research assistant for a while now, you’ll be pleased to know that Deep Research takes “AI research assistant” to a whole new level. It leverages the advanced reasoning and long context capabilities of Gemini 2.0 to:
- Conduct Autonomous Research: It can independently explore complex topics, gather information from various sources and synthesize findings.
- Generate Comprehensive Reports: It generates detailed reports, including key findings, summaries and citations to original sources.
Search
While Gemini 2.0 is already in some dev’s hands, Google says they’re working quickly to get the new and improved model into its products, starting with Gemini, their generative AI chatbot and assistant, and Google Search.
With the supposed power behind 2.0, users’ Search experiences are bound to become better, as the model can handle more complex topics and multi-step questions — the most exciting of which seem to be:
- Advanced math equations.
- Multimodal queries.
- Coding.
Project Mariner
Now this one is interesting. Project Mariner, an experimental AI agent developed by Google’s DeepMind, will leverage the advanced capabilities of Gemini 2.0 to automate various online tasks by understanding and interacting with web elements such as text, images, code and forms.
Yes, it’s a Gemini 2.0-powered Chrome browser extension designed to understand and reason across multiple websites to automate receptive tasks and more. This could be huge for all kinds of office workers — including marketers — and consumers, too.
Specific tasks haven’t been highlighted yet, but Google made sure to note that the tool will “provide a clear view of its plans and actions” so users can easily understand what it’s doing at all times. If it gets confused, it’s also designed to ask for clarification to keep users in control.
Eager beavers can join the trusted tester waitlist now via the button at the top of the product landing page. A general release date is yet to be announced.
Will Gemini 2.0 Matter Much For Marketers?
As far as we know, marketers already using Gemini, Search and other Google products powered by Gemini won’t have to change up their workflows to reap the benefits brought on by 2.0, since it’ll simply exist as an update and replacement to the current version.
That said, it will most certainly matter if you fall into the “I don’t mind using AI as a tool” camp. Its multimodel capabilities will enable it to process and generate text, images, videos and audio more efficiently while integrating various media types. So, quicker and potentially more enhanced content could be on the way that’s better than what we’re used to out of current Gen AI models … but we’ll wait and see to form an educated opinion.
Gemini 2.0’s agentic capabilities may also mean that marketers eager to continue automating tedious tasks could begin applying it to even more complex, multi-step processes.
Making Information More Useful
It seems that the long and short of Gemini 2.0 is quite simply that it’s more capable. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, closed his Gemini 2.0 announcement succinctly:
“If Gemini 1.0 was about organizing and understanding information, Gemini 2.0 is about making it much more useful.”
While a gradual rollout and dev access have begun, opinions will pour in more heavily when we see a general release and more users can experience Gemini 2.0 for themselves.
Are you excited? Unsure what to think? Sapped? All of the above? Me, too, friend.
