Google takes the wraps off its next-gen DALL-E 3 competitor

Even if you aren’t using AI tools and features in your everyday life, there’s a good chance that you’re going to start coming across more of them. Whether you choose to use AI for your tasks is up to you, but companies seemingly want to make sure you always have the option — and Google is one that continues to develop such AI-based products and services. OpenAI has become renowned for its tools, such as DALL-E, the text-to-image AI model integrated into ChatGPT. Now, Google has developed an enterprise-facing solution to rival the latest version from OpenAI, known as DALL-E 3.

As announced by Google on one of its blogs, Imagen 2 — its latest text-to-image AI-based technology — is now widely available for Vertex AI customers, assuming they have been approved for access. Vertex AI is Google’s collection of its cloud machine-learning products and services. Many companies have already hopped on the bandwagon and started using the original Imagen, including Shutterstock and Snap. Now, Google is promising higher quality images, text rendering in additional languages, logo generation, and more through Imagen 2.

The product was developed using the company’s DeepMind AI technology, which paved the way for quality enhancements. Now, Imagen 2 can also create captions from images, as well as form detailed text-based responses pertaining to them. The tool also has privacy and safety precautions baked into it. For instance, Google’s digital watermarking feature is available to those deploying Imagen 2 for image creation. This ensures that AI-generated pictures can be distinguishable from real-life imagery.

Whether companies widely adopt Imagen 2, however, has yet to be determined. With alternatives already available from Google competitors, such as OpenAI, it’s hard to forecast Imagen 2’s success. What is known, though, is that Google continues to keep pace with OpenAI’s developments, specifically as they pertain to DALL-E. For instance, the original version of Imagen was refined as DALL-E evolved and its second generation rolled out.

Google shared details on Imagen Editor (which was in beta) in June 2023, created to help with image editing. This feature was developed to allow Imagen editors to go back and edit portions of previously generated pictures. In October 2023, Google also debuted its Search Generative Experience feature through the Google Search Labs program. This allowed users to generate images by providing text descriptions.

Google may not be as closely associated with artificial intelligence as OpenAI or its services. However, this doesn’t mean that the tech giant doesn’t have its eye on the potential of AI. After seeing what OpenAI could accomplish, many companies have started moving toward AI product and service development. Google is just one of them, and Imagen 2 is likely only a sample of what’s to come in the future.