[lacker]

Probably not. Do they really believe they are going to knock OpenAI out of business, when the OpenAI models are better?

Instead I think they are going after the "Android model". Recognize they might not be able to dethrone the leader who invented the space. Define yourself in the marketplace as the cheaper alternative. "Less good but almost as good." In the end, they hope to be one of a small number of surviving members of an valuable oligopoly.

[scarmig]

Cheapness has a quality all its own.

Gemini is substantially cheaper to run (in consumer prices, and likely internally as well) than OpenAI's models. You might wonder, what's the value in this, if the model isn't leading? But cheaper inference could potentially be a killer edge when you can scale test-time compute for reasoning. Scaling test-time compute is, after all, what makes o1 so powerful. And this new Gemini doesn't expose that capability at all to the user, so it's comparing apples and oranges anyway.

DeepMind researchers have never been primarily about LLMs, but RL. If DM's (and OAI's) theory is correct--that you can use test-time compute to generate better results, and train on that--this is potentially a substantial edge for Google.

[zaptrem]

Google still has an unbelievable training infrastructure advantage. The second they can figure out how to convert that directly to model performance without worrying about data (as the o1 blog post seemed to imply OAI had) they’ll be kings.

[llelouch]

This is why Sam Altman keeps releasing things a few days before Deepmind. He is worried Google will overtake them more so than other companies.

[Dr4kn]

In Home Assistant you can use LLMs to control your Home with your voice. Gemini performs similar to the GPT models, and with the cost difference there is little reason to choose OpenAi

[a_wild_dandan]

Using either frontier model for basic edge device problems is wasteful. Use something cheap. We're asking "is there a profitable niche between the best & runner-up models?" I believe so.

[GaggiX]

Android is more popular than iOS by a large margin and it's neither less good or cheaper, it really depends on the smartphone.

[socksy]

The latest Google Pixel phone (you know, the one that Google actually set the price for) appears to cost the exact same as the latest iPhone ($999 for pro, $799 for non-pro). And I would argue against the "less good" bit too.

I think this analysis is not in keeping with reality, and I doubt if that's their strategy.

[rajup]

I doubt anyone buys Pixel phones at full price. They are discounted almost right out of the gate.

[JeremyNT]

> Probably not. Do they really believe they are going to knock OpenAI out of business, when the OpenAI models are better?

Would OpenAI even exist without Google publishing their research? The idea that Google is some kind of also-ran playing catch up here feels kind of wrong to me.

Sure OpenAI gave us the first productized chatbots, so in that sense they "invented the space," but it's not like Google were over there twiddling their thumbs - they just weren't exposing their models directly outside of Google.

I think we're past the point where any of these tech giants have some kind of moat (other than hardware, but you have to assume that Google is at least at parity with OpenAI/MS there).