Snapchat taps Google's Gemini to power its chatbot's generative AI features

Snap has entered into an expanded partnership with Google Cloud to power generative AI experiences within Snapchat's My AI chatbot. The chatbot will leverage the multimodal capabilities of Google's Gemini AI to enable the chatbot to understand different types of information, like text, audio, images, and videos.

Gemini is powering the Google Lens-like features that Snapchat announced at its annual Snap Partner Summit last week. For example, users can ask Snap's My AI to translate a photo of a street sign in a foreign country or ask the chatbot to select the healthiest option on a menu.

Snap first launched My AI back in February 2023. At launch, the chatbot was powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT. Now, the company is tapping Google's generative AI models to allow the chatbot also to process images, videos, and text.

Google said in an announcement that following Snapchat integration into Gemini into My AI, the chatbot saw over 2.5x as much engagement within the United States.

"This partnership with Google Cloud reinforces everything that's so important to serving our community," said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in the press release. "Snap is all about empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. Now with Gemini in My AI, Snapchatters can learn so much more about the world, do it really quickly in the moment, and easily share that with friends."

Today's announcement builds on the partnership between Snap and Google Cloud that has lasted for over 10 years.

While it makes sense for Snapchat to invest in new AI features, given that its competitors are also doing so, there are already concerns about the potential risks My AI poses to users, especially children. By making the chatbot even smarter, the potential for risks may grow.