CES 2024: Keeping an Eye on 3 Tech Trends ZDNET's Surprise Product of the Year: Meta Quest 3 Steals the Show in 2023 Learn AI Fundamentals in Just 10 Hours with IBM's Free Training 2023: A Year of Tech Innovation with Two Major Breakthroughs Meta's $299 Ray-Ban Smart Glasses: The Must-Have Gadget of the Year Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Review: A Top Contender for Best Smartphone of 2023 Apple Vision Pro Exceeds Expectations with Impressive Features Google Steps into the AI Race with Bard and Imagen Google was quick to enter the AI race by introducing their very own AI chatbot, Google Bard. However, they took a different approach in the AI image generator space, choosing not to release the capable Imagen model to the public, until now. Recently, Google announced several updates to its AI capabilities, with a focus on image generation. Notably, they introduced a brand new image generator called ImageFX, which users can utilize to generate images from text. This tool, powered by Imagen 2, offers a prompt interface that enhances user creativity by allowing them to experiment with different dimensions of their creations. Users can access this tool through Google Labs, the company's experimental platform for testing new features and products. Imagen 2, developed by Google DeepMind, is known for generating high-quality images, including realistic human faces and hands.

Google Bard also gains the ability to generate images using Imagen 2, simply by asking the chatbot to create a photo based on a conversational prompt. This feature is now available in most English-speaking countries. Google has included Imagen 2 in various offerings, such as Ads, Duet AI in Workspace, SGE, and Google Cloud's Vertex AI. To address concerns about potential misuse, Google has implemented safeguards to prevent the generation of violent, offensive, and explicit content. Additionally, all images produced using Imagen 2 will be discreetly watermarked with SynthID, a tool developed by Google DeepMind for identification purposes. When viewing images in Search and Chrome, users can see whether the photo was generated using Google's AI tools by checking the "About this image" insights.