Google starts scanning all your photos, Gmail, map location about people. Google has now confirmed the biggest upgrade to Gemini we have s...
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| Google starts scanning all your photos, Gmail, map location about people. |
This upgrade comes first to Google’s AI subscribers in the U.S., but will then roll out to everyone, everywhere and will also be available free in some form. Google says it’s “a step towards truly personal AI.” If it works as billed it’s undoubtedly powerful. First and foremost this connects Gmail, of course. And in doing so revisits misleading stories around Google opting users into having their inboxes used to train AI by default. But Gmail is just one of those connected apps. And arguably, it’s not the most sensitive.
Google says that if you upgrade, "your Google Photos data is used to infer your interests, relationships to people in your photos, and where you’ve been, including by associating your face with corresponding location data and timestamps.” And inferring intelligence from photos is a heavy focus within the example use cases Google has released. For example, suggesting tire types for a family car by “referencing our family road trips to Oklahoma found in Google Photos” and then providing the license plate by pulling “the seven-digit number from a picture in Photos.”
By linking disparate data sources, this upgrade takes AI to this different level. “I’ve also been getting excellent tips for books, shows, clothes and travel. Just this week, it’s been exceptional for planning our upcoming spring break. By analyzing our family’s interests and past trips in Gmail and Photos, it skipped the tourist traps. Instead, it suggested an overnight train journey and specific board games we could play along the way.”
Google says “Gemini doesn’t train directly on your Gmail inbox or Google Photos library. We train on limited info, like specific prompts in Gemini and the model’s responses, to improve functionality over time." Above all, users can decide whether to upgrade or not. “Connecting your apps is off by default: you choose to turn it on, decide exactly which apps to connect, and can turn it off anytime. When enabled, Gemini accesses your data to answer your specific requests and to do things for you. And because this data already lives at Google securely, you don’t have to send sensitive data elsewhere to start personalizing your experience.”
It’s hard to overstate what a step-change this is for AI and user data. Your Gmail inbox is one thing, but analyzing all your photos to infer data about people, times and places is beyond what we’ve seen before. My caution is the same as always. Upgrade by all means. Just keep in mind the privacy trade-offs before jumping in.
“Once enabled,” Google says, “it works across Web, Android and iOS and with all of the models in the Gemini model picker.” But with Apple’s confirmation it will use Gemini within the confines of Private Cloud Compute and Samsung’s push for “hybrid AI,” we don’t yet know what alternatives may be offered to these blanket opt-ins.
