Google announced an update to their Gemini personal AI assistant that increases personalization of responses so that it anticipates user’s needs and feels more like a natural personal assistant instead of a tool. Examples of how the new Gemini will help users is for brainstorming travel ideas and making personalized recommendations.
The new feature rolls out first to desktop and then to mobile apps.
Gemini With Personalization
Google announced a new version of Gemini that adapts responses to a user’s unique interests. It does this based on their search history which enables Gemini to deliver responses with a higher level of contextual relevance and personalization. Google intends to expand personalization by integrating other Google apps and services, naming Photos and Images as examples.
Google explained:
“In the coming months, Gemini will expand its ability to understand you by connecting with other Google apps and services, including Photos and YouTube. This will enable Gemini to provide more personalized insights, drawing from a broader understanding of your activities and preferences to deliver responses that truly resonate with you.”
How Personalization Works
Users can share their personal preferences and details like dietary requirements or their partner’s names in order to obtain a greater degree of personalization in responses that feel specific to the individual. Advanced users can allow Gemini to access past chats to further improve the relevance of responses.
Google’s access to search history and data from other apps may give it an advantage that competing apps like ChatGPT may not be able to match.
Personalization Is Opt-In
There are four key points to understand about personalization in Gemini:
- Personalization is currently an opt-in feature that’s labeled “experimental.”
- Users need to choose to use Personalization from the model drop-down menu in order to activate it.
- Gemini asks for permission to connect to search history and other Google services and apps before it uses them for personalization.
- Users can also disconnect from the feature.
That means that millions of Gemini users won’t suddenly begin accessing an increasing amount of information from a contextual AI assistant instead of search. But it does mean the door to that happening exists and the next step is for Google users to open it.
What Publishers Need To Know
This update increasingly blurs the distance between traditional Search and Google’s Assistant while simultaneously making information increasingly accessible in a way that publishers and SEOs should be concerned enough to research to identify how to respond.
Considerations about privacy issues may keep Google from turning personalization into an opt-out feature. And while personalization is currently an opt-in from a drop-down menu because it’s still an experimental feature. But once it’s mature it’s not unreasonable to assume that Google may begin nudging users to adopt it.
Even though this is an experimental feature, publishers and SEOs may want to understand how this impacts them, such as if it’s possible to track personalized Gemini referral traffic or will it be masked because of privacy considerations? Will answers from Gemini reduce the need for clicks to publisher sites?
Read Google’s announcement:
Gemini gets personal, with tailored help from your Google app
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Tada Images
