3 reasons to upgrade to Gemini Advanced, from Google I/O 2024

As part of Google’s latest suite of artificial intelligence projects, Gemini Advanced is an AI assistant built to offer the latest in text and code generation and creative collaboration. Gemini Advanced is going from Ultra 1.0 to Gemini 1.5 Pro, Google’s most powerful AI model, with a long context window of one million tokens. It will be available in more than 35 languages and with new integrations to more Google apps. 

Also: Everything announced during Google I/O 2024: Gemini, Search, Android 15, and more

During the I/O event, Google announced new updates to Gemini Advanced that will be available in the coming months. The Advanced AI bot is available in a subscription that costs $20 a month, although you can get a two-month free trial right now.

1. Upload files directly to Gemini Advanced

Gemini Pro 1.5’s large context of one million tokens allows Gemini Advanced users to have longer conversations and give the AI chatbot larger documents to process. Now, these subscribers can upload files — including long PDFs — that they want Gemini Advanced to summarize or answer questions about. 

Users can upload files directly to Gemini Advanced or through the Drive extension. The one million token window means that users can upload a PDF that’s up to 1,500 pages long or summarize 100 emails. The more advanced Pro 1.5 model powering Gemini Advanced enables it to make more thorough data analysis, especially with better image understanding. Google explained that its premium chatbot can process an image and give you a recipe for a dish you photographed or answer a math equation from a photo. The company also said uploaded files remain private and are not used to train AI models.

Also: 6 ways OpenAI just supercharged ChatGPT for free users

Google also announced it is giving two million tokens to Gemini Advanced later this year, which will make the AI bot capable of handling larger files, including more than 30,000 lines of code and up to hour-long videos. 

2. Let Gemini Advanced plan your itineraries, no matter how complex

Google also announced a more dynamic itinerary planning experience for Gemini Advanced users that will be available in the coming months. Through integrations with other Google apps, like Gmail and Calendar, Gemini Advanced can give users complex itineraries that consider their flight times, meal preferences, scheduled events, and preferred activities. 

Also: Stanford’s VR breakthrough could spell the end of clunky headsets – thanks to AI

The company shared this example: “Imagine you ask Gemini: ‘My family and I are going to Miami for Labor Day. My son loves art and my husband really wants fresh seafood. Can you pull my flight and hotel info from Gmail and help me plan the weekend?'”

A prompt like this lets Gemini Advanced know your meal preferences and preferred activities — in this case, seafood and art — and instructs it to pull your flight and hotel info from your email to plan your arrival time and recommend places nearby. 

3. Personalize Gemini Advanced to your preferences

Google just unveiled a new Gems feature within Gemini Advanced that enables users to create a customized version of Gemini. With Gems, users can create their own assistant, like a kitchen helper, math tutor, gym buddy, or creative writing guide. Users will be able to create their own Gems simply by giving Gemini Advanced the instructions they want it to follow. The AI bot will enhance these instructions and create a Gem for the user.

Also: ChatGPT vs. ChatGPT Plus: Is a paid subscription still worth it?

Gems can also access your Google Drive, Gmail, and other Google apps to build on content from these extensions. 

Although this sounds similar to what custom GPTs do in ChatGPT, it’s more like a combination of GPTs and Custom Instructions. GPTs are ChatGPT bots you can create in ChatGPT with custom information for different purposes and make available for others in the GPT Store. Custom Instructions are directives you can set up in your account to let ChatGPT know how to address you, respond, and who you are so you can have a more personalized experience throughout all your chats.