Are you actually using Gemini and, if so, what are you doing with it? [Poll]

4 weeks ago 4

Generative AI tools are impressive, no doubt, but I’ve had a lot of trouble integrating them into my daily life. Even Google’s Gemini, with its far-reaching feature set and integrations, has proven to just… kinda be there for me. What about you? Are you actually using Gemini?

Google’s focus is, more than ever, focused clearly on AI, with Gemini at the heart of those efforts, taking a few different forms. The first of those was a chatbot, like ChatGPT, that could spit out information based on a prompt. That’s also since evolved to include analyzing and generating images, working with extensions for Google Calendar and Workspace apps, and more. Then, there’s Gemini’s new role as the new assistant on Android, replacing Google Assistant. This is still an optional change in most cases, as Gemini still can’t replace all of Assistant’s old responsibilities. And then there’s Gemini baked into apps, such as in Gmail.

Generative AI has, for many, been a tool primarily used for generating content, specifically for writing. Frankly, as someone who writes for a living, I’ve never found this actually all that useful. In the same time as Gemini can spit out a few paragraphs and I have to fact check and tweak them for say, an email, I could have written that myself. That’s not going to be true for everyone, of course, but the factual errors that come from generative AI should given everyone a reason to pause when considering how much they use this specific functionality.

That’s where Google’s work in building out what Gemini can do has been actually making AI seem more appealing.

Gemini isn’t just about generating content, it’s about understanding it and using that understanding to help you get things done, at least in some cases.

Some of the places I’ve found Gemini useful have been in finding answers when I don’t really know the specifics of what I’m looking for. Something that Gemini is remarkably good at that Google Search wasn’t as good at is helping you find a word if you only have a loose explanation of what that word means. That’s really helpful!

Beyond that, I’ve also come to really appreciate some of Gemini’s multimodal capabilities.

On a recent trip, I had an itinerary emailed to me with a series of events and times. All of the times were in 24-hour format which my brain just can’t process at a glance. So I took a screenshot, added it to Gemini, and said “add these to my calendar.” After a few seconds of processing, all of the events were ready to be added, times converted and everything. I could have done that myself, but it would have taken a few minutes and a lot of switching back and forth (or using splitscreen on my Fold). But, Gemini just did it. That was great! Of course, when I tried that again to get a screenshot of the success, it failed to replicate that functionality.

Which brings me back to my usual train of thought around Gemini and other AI tools. I still have a deep mistrust of Gemini, not in the sense of how it gathers or uses data, but in what it spits out. You can ask the same question twice and get two completely different answers. Or ask for the same task to be performed, and get two totally different results. That’s frustrating and unreliable, and a big part of the reason I do not like using AI products. But, as these continue to be built out, they’re surely going to get better, and I feel like I’m starting to finally feel the benefits of that.

What about you? What have you been using Gemini for? Are you using it at all? Let’s discuss!