Google is also investing in video games and AI in another way: creating playable virtual worlds on the fly from a prompt image using a “foundation world model” called Genie 2 that it showed off last week. That work seems early, too: Genie 2 can only generate consistent worlds for “up to a minute,” Google says.

Google on Wednesday unveiled Gemini 2.0, its next-gen genAI model and its biggest AI update to date. The announcement dropped right in the middle of OpenAI’s big ChatGPT Christmas-themed event, showing how incredibly competitive the AI race is.

Google’s Gemini AI models have graduated to version 2.0. Beyond just performance upgrades, Gemini 2.0 aims to enhance functionality through access to external tools. Agentic AI systems built with Gemini 2.0 promise complex problem-solving skills.