Google Introduces AI Mode for Search 🔎!

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Google Introduces AI Mode for Search 🔎!

Also: Perplexity teams up with Deutsche Telekom to create AI phone, while Salesforce launches AI agent market 🤖. 

It’s update o’clock at the Neural Frontier, and this week packed a punch 👊, to say the least!

Welcome to another issue of the Neural Frontier; there’s a lot to cover, so let’s go over the headlines. 

Google took center stage this week, as the AI giant released a new AI mode for Search. Not to be left behind, Salesforce and Perplexity unveiled updates of their own. The former debuted its AI agent market, while the latter unveiled a new AI phone it’s working on. 

But it doesn’t stop there. McDonald's is embracing AI across its outlets, and the level of implementation would probably surprise you. 

Enough said, let’s walk through this week’s updates 🏄‍♂️. 

In a rush? Here's your quick byte: 

🔎 Google introduces AI mode for Search!

🤳 Perplexity teams up with Deutsche Telekom to create AI phone. 

🤖  Salesforce launches AI agent market! 

🎭 AI Reimagines: The Disney Princess showcase you didn’t know you needed! 

🎯 Everything else you missed this week.  

⚡ The Neural Frontier’s weekly spotlight: 3 AI tools making the rounds this week.

🔎 Google introduces AI mode for Search!

Google has announced significant upgrades to its popular AI Overviews feature and launched a new experimental tool called AI Mode, both powered by the advanced Gemini 2.0 AI model.

As usual, here’s what you need to know: 

🚀 What's New in AI Overviews? Google’s AI Overviews, already used by more than a billion people, are now integrated with Gemini 2.0, providing faster, more accurate responses. This update significantly improves handling challenging queries in coding, advanced mathematics, and multimodal questions involving various data types like text and images. AI Overviews are now more broadly accessible as well, with availability expanded to teens and removal of the requirement to sign in.

🤖 Introducing AI Mode: In response to requests from power users, Google introduced AI Mode, an experimental search mode tailored for complex, multi-step queries requiring in-depth reasoning, comparison, and exploration. 

Key features of AI Mode include:

• Ability to pose detailed, nuanced questions and seamlessly continue the conversation with follow-up queries.

• Comprehensive AI-generated answers supported by quality web links.

• A "query fan-out" approach, where Gemini 2.0 concurrently searches multiple data sources, integrating diverse insights into cohesive responses.

• Easy transition into related follow-up questions, such as exploring specific details within broader topics.

For example, when asking about differences in sleep tracking features among smart rings, smartwatches, and tracking mats, AI Mode compiles detailed comparisons. This allows users to naturally transition into related follow-up questions, such as, "What happens to your heart rate during deep sleep?"

🌟 Why This Matters:  AI Mode significantly simplifies the search experience, reducing the need for multiple queries and interactions. By combining Gemini 2.0’s advanced reasoning capabilities with Google's expansive information resources—including real-time data from the Knowledge Graph and shopping platforms—AI Mode allows for deeper exploration and more intuitive information discovery.

🧪 Testing & Availability: Google has launched AI Mode as an experimental, opt-in feature available initially through Labs, beginning with Google One AI Premium subscribers. The initial feedback from these users will guide ongoing improvements and enhancements. Upcoming developments include:

• Integrating visual elements like images and videos.

• Improving factual accuracy and objectivity of responses.

• Continually enhancing user experience based on real-world interactions.

🤳 Perplexity teams up with Deutsche Telekom to create AI phone.

Deutsche Telekom (DT) has partnered with AI startup Perplexity to develop an innovative "AI Phone," set to debut in the second half of 2025 and hit the market in 2026 at a price below $1,000. 

Here’s the lowdown: 

🚀 Key Highlights of the AI Phone:

• Collaborative Development: Built in collaboration with Perplexity—valued at approximately $9 billion—and other tech companies like Picsart.

• Magenta AI Assistant: Includes DT's proprietary AI assistant, "Magenta AI," designed for proactive user engagement and everyday task automation.

• Proactive Capabilities: Powered by Perplexity, the phone will proactively handle tasks such as booking flights, making reservations, sending messages, placing calls, and setting reminders.

• AI on the Lock Screen: Offers immediate, integrated AI experiences directly accessible from the device's lock screen.

🤖 Strategic Impact & Innovation: The partnership reflects Perplexity’s transition from a passive query-answering AI to a proactive assistant, capable of performing real-world actions autonomously. This positions DT competitively against tech giants by giving it control over customer relationships typically dominated by Google and Apple.

🌟 Broader Industry Implications: The AI Phone is part of a broader trend among telecom providers aiming to leverage AI to gain a competitive edge. DT seeks to raise the bar for consumer expectations by integrating sophisticated AI functionality directly into hardware and establishing new market standards.

🧪 Market Entry and Challenges: DT will initially target the European market, although specific hardware details, including the operating system and technical specifications, remain undisclosed. However, one question remains: how does DT plan to penetrate this highly competitive smartphone market? We’ll just have to wait and see for ourselves.

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🤖 Salesforce launches AI agent market!

Salesforce has introduced AgentExchange, a trusted marketplace designed to expand its Agentforce digital labor platform. This new ecosystem allows businesses, developers, and Salesforce partners to easily create, discover, and deploy AI-powered agent solutions, tapping into the rapidly expanding $6 trillion digital labor market.

Here’s how: 

🚀 Highlights of AgentExchange:

• Robust Partner Ecosystem: Launches with over 200 partners, including Google Cloud, Docusign, Box, and Workday, providing prebuilt actions, topics, and templates.

• Enhanced Functionality: Users can seamlessly integrate ready-made AI components to automate tasks like generating agreements (Docusign), managing unstructured content (Box), or streamlining HR processes (Workday).

• Diverse AI Components: Offers a range of customizable, prebuilt AI agent components:

  • Actions: Extend agent capabilities via integrations (APIs, flows, prompts).

  • Prompt Templates: Ensure consistent user-agent interactions.

  • Topics: Structure agent behaviors around specific tasks.

  • Agent Templates: Combine multiple AI functionalities into comprehensive solutions.

🤖 Benefits for Users and Developers: AgentExchange simplifies AI agent integration, enabling users to quickly deploy advanced, industry-specific solutions directly within Salesforce’s Agent Builder tool. In addition, partners can easily offer components leveraging Salesforce CRM and Slack integration capabilities.

Initial partners, including Docusign and Google Cloud, highlight how AgentExchange streamlines complex AI workflows, saving customers from the cost and complexity of developing proprietary AI solutions. This initiative is expected to significantly impact the broader AI market, fueling innovation and collaboration.

🎭 AI Reimagines: The Disney Princess showcase you didn’t know you needed!

Disney fans, tap in! Relive your childhood nostalgia with this week’s showcase—though some might call it a compilation—of some of your favorite Disney princesses 👸. 

🎯 Everything else you missed this week. 

📺 Amazon tests AI dubbing for some movies and TV series on Prime Video

🍟 McDonald’s embraces AI technology at its restaurants. 

🚀 SpaceX’s Starship spiraled out of control while in space during a test flight.

🎮 Anthropic’s Claude AI can play Pokémon Red. 

⚡ The Neural Frontier’s weekly spotlight: 3 AI tools making the rounds this week. 

1. ✍️ Hoppy Copy is an AI-powered email marketing solution that accelerates campaign creation by 10x. The platform specializes in brand voice customization and integration, newsletter and sequence automation, and Image and GIF generation. 

2. 📝 Scribe transforms documentation creation with an AI-powered platform that generates SOPs, manuals, and tutorials in minutes rather than hours. The tool specializes in automated guide creation from process recording, AI-generated step descriptions, as well as automatic updating across all linked versions. 

3. 🎬 Throws AI targets consumers of podcasts, news, interviews, lectures, and educational content, positioning itself as a time-saving solution that extracts essential knowledge from lengthy videos.

Google, Perplexity, and Salesforce walk into a bar…

What comes out? The 97th issue of the Neural Frontier 🏄‍♂️. 

It’s been a week filled with updates from AI leaders, and we’re particularly excited about the broader implications of these product releases. 

How will the agentic era shape up in light of AgentExchange? What else does Google have up its sleeves? And how will the AI community receive Perplexity’s new AI phone? 

We don’t have all the answers, but we can tell you one thing for sure: it’s shaping up to be a pretty remarkable year for AI! 

And as always, we’ll catch you next week, same time, same place! 🙋‍♂️

PS: Don’t forget to Subscribe if you haven’t already 😊.