Boosting Your Business with Generative AI
Google Cloud dazzles while delivering time- and resource-saving capabilities
Generative AI has been getting a lot of press in recent months, but the media attention is only telling a small part of what’s actually a very impressive narrative around what this technology is capable of. Sure, you can use it to help overcome writer’s block, create an initial draft of a business email, or even answer some of life’s burning questions. And while there are also a lot of stories circulating about the potential downsides of large language models (LLM), from their use for plagiarism and deep fakes or even some pretty awful songwriting, there’s another narrative that’s not getting nearly enough attention: the one that explains how generative AI delivers real business value.
This is precisely the focus of Google Cloud’s GenAI program. If you tuned into the Google Data Cloud & AI Summit at the end of March or Google I/O in early May (or watched the session replays, which you can still do), you quickly discovered that Google is betting big on the future of generative AI. But so are its competitors. It seems hardly a day goes by without a press release about major investments being made in generative AI by tech companies, their partners, and other organizations wanting to enter the generative AI space. So how is Google Cloud carving out its territory in this increasingly crowded landscape?
It starts with Google’s foundation models, which differ from previous AI models in that they’re:
- Multi-task. These models can provide a wide range of tasks instead of having to specialize in one particular type of task.
- Generative. Google Cloud’s foundation models can generate high-quality text, images, speech, code, and much more.
- Intelligent. With minimal training, foundation models can work out of the box and be adapted for targeted use cases with very little example data.
The biggest differentiator for Google Cloud’s offering comes from the combination of foundation models, Google’s search capabilities, and conversational AI. Google Cloud’s Gen App Builder delivers amazing experiences for customers and employees alike with a simple, no-code interface, which is illustrated to great effect in this demo on building generative apps.
But the real wow factor hits when we look at what Google Cloud’s generative AI can do when applied to real business issues. The two main ways Google Cloud is leveraging generative AI are for making complex data accessible and useful and conversational experiences (the videos linked here take you through both the building of apps that deliver these capabilities as well as the finished product, so you see exactly how useful this technology can be).
For example, anyone who has ever been frustrated by a chatbot that doesn’t provide any real value when trying to get information or conduct a transaction will be amazed to see how far the technology has come. By creating highly conversational experiences, Google Gen Apps can:
- Field inquiries
- Provide suggestions
- Offer comparative views of multiple products
- Ingest user-generated content such as images to further inform recommendations
- Provide interaction summaries and save these for future access when necessary
- Complete transactions
- Schedule pickup or delivery of goods
- … and so much more
The Gen App Builder allows for useful customizations, such as specifying what sources the AI will use to inform its interactions, so you know that the information it provides your customers will be appropriate, accurate, and timely. You can also configure the types of responses the AI provides, even down to allowing or eliminating friendly chit-chat. But if generative AI and foundation models seem complicated, Google Cloud has provided help here too. The machine learning model tool Vertex AI now comes with a Model Garden, so you can choose from a wide range of pre-built Google and open-source models to help you kick off a variety of workflows.
Google’s approach to generative AI lends substance to a topic that, while new and sometimes daunting, doesn’t have to be as impenetrable as it may seem on the surface. One takeaway to keep in mind is that generative AI is so much more than an image and text generator. Sure, you can use it to write a song of questionable quality or have some really unsettling conversations, but by leaning into the more innovative business applications for this technology, Google gives a clearer view of how useful it can be, which proves that the future of generative AI is so much better and more practical than the headlines suggest.
Need help getting started with Google Cloud’s generative AI technology and want to be sure you’re doing so in the most responsible and secure way? Let Slalom help you evaluate where Google Cloud generative AI can provide the most benefit to your business and get you on a path to using artificial intelligence to effectively support the human intelligence in your organization.
Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more and reach out today.
