Google’s Astra All Set to Overtake GPT-4o Autonomous Agents?

Google and GPT seem to be running on a head-to-head race of AI automation and assistants. Day after OpenAI launched its GPT-4o which acts as the virtual assistant to the users, Google didn’t wait much to introduce its new autonomous agent “Astra”. With capabilities like perceiving, conversing, reasoning, and much more, Google’s Astra has made all jaws drop with its extremely AI-driven functions.

Google DeepMind Chief Demis Hassabis said in a blog post, ”Building on Gemini, we’ve developed prototype agents that can process information faster by continuously encoding video frames, combining the video and speech input into a timeline of events, and caching this information for efficient recall”.

The Google’s Astra works on a principle where it records the information present in the frame and provides assistance as per the questions being asked by the users. Be it defining an object, searching for your lost glasses on the table full of things, or solving a coding problem, everything is set to become a child’s play with Google’s Astra.

The new tool from Google has received a mixture of responses from the netizens. While some admire it for its automative capabilities like suggesting things, and solving problems on voice command that too with huge accuracy, others are not happy as the technology can cause the termination of employees across companies around the globe.

Let’s see what an X user has to say about Google’s Astra- “One thing Google is doing right: they are finally making serious efforts to integrate AI into the search box. I sense the agent flow: planning, real-time browsing, and multimodal input, all from the landing page. Google’s strongest moat is distribution. Gemini doesn’t have to be the best model to be the most used one in the world”.

While only the prototype of the application has been launched among the users, it seems too good to be true for many internet users. Most of the people seem to be doubting on showcased capabilities as well as less impressed by the longer latency.

Google launched Astra just a day after OpenAI showcased GPT-4o with a lot of similar capabilities. The functions of both autonomous agents indicate a competition between both entities to make and launch robust AI solutions.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta has also shared his views on the burgeoning technology. According to Zuckerberg, the role of AI agents in customer interactions is going to increase rapidly. A future can be envisioned where the businesses along with creators will have their own AI to represent their interests.

Another statement comes from DeepLearning.AI founder Andrew Ng, who said, “A lot of people talk about the ‘ChatGPT moment’, where you’re like ‘Wow, never seen anything like this’. Many people will have kind of a ‘Wow, I couldn’t imagine an AI agent doing this’ moment”.

Talking about OpenAI GPT-4o, the similar capabilities carried by the tools include but are not limited to a natural conversation with the user, identity language and problems to suggest the solution, recognizing the things displayed on the screen, solving problems, analyzing visual content, and much more.

No matter if it is Google or OpenAI, there is one thing confirmed users are very soon going to witness a technological revolution where everyone will have their personal assistant. Be it testing the code, arranging the emails, or just being a helper in the real world, the new tools from Google and OpenAI are going to be a lot of help.