Remember the “more personal Siri” ad that Apple pulled? Yeah, the same one where you could just say “which person I met at XYZ cafe two weeks ago” and it answered. And pulled a whole bunch of other futuristic tricks because it was armed with deep knowledge of your “iPhone life,” digging everywhere from your mail and messages to location and photos. Well, those plans still haven’t materialized.
But if you’ve been waiting for a similar convenience on Google’s side of the ecosystem, the future has just arrived. Today, Google has announced Personal Intelligence. Think of it as a more intimate version of Gemini, one that is armed with knowledge of your video preferences on YouTube, the conversation in your Gmail inbox, the memories saved in Photos, and what you’ve been looking up on Google Search.
The big shift
This avatar of the AI assistant knows what’s in your inbox. And Photos. And Search history. And YouTube watching records. Essentially, all the core Google products that define your digital life. To what end? Well, it just knows these things — if you allow it. And once you’ve given it permission, Gemini’s answers will be personalized for you.
Let’s say there are a few purchase receipts for black Gas jeans in your inbox. The next time you ask Gemini to make a list of clothes you should prepare for your next vacation, the answer will include black Gas jeans. Or similar recommendations. If you ask it to plan an itinerary, it will take a peek at your Photos, and specifically the bajillion cake pictures stored in your Gallery.
Therefore, the itinerary it plans will include eateries where you can find and indulge in a variety of cakes, instead of steak and other delicacies. In a nutshell, you are giving Gemini access to your life with Google products to get answers that fit your mood, preferences, and history instead of a generic answer.
What does this mean for you?
If you look at it the other way around, Personal Intelligence in Gemini is simply a way of writing (or speaking) smaller prompts. Instead of saying something like “list ingredients for a charcuterie board but exclude pine nuts and blue cheese,” because you are allergic to the last two, you can simply ask for ingredients for a charcuterie board.
Gemini will automatically exclude those two items, based on your past conversations with the chatbot or health records saved in any of the connected Google products. Connected is the key here. Google says you can choose to connect only the services you want to reference information from.
These connections are switched off by default, and you have to enable Personal Intelligence for each Google service individually. Google says it had to develop a new system called “context packing” so that Gemini can dig deep into its own knowledge base, the internet, and your personal information to give personalized answers.
“It delivers a tailored set of personal recommendations close to your upcoming accommodations by making sense of your data like your photos and emails, as well as things like your past Gemini app chat conversations, Search queries and YouTube history,” says the company.
The idea behind Personal Intelligence is to save the callout in your interactions. So far, if you wanted Gemini to look at your inbox, you had to manually type “@Gmail” in the text command. But if you enable the Gmail connection for Personal Intelligence, Gemini will automatically glean information to provide an answer.
Google’s deepest dive into your life
Now, you must be wondering that with such deep access, Google will have a free hand at accessing and using your personal data, more so than ever. Well, the company promises that it isn’t the case.
“Built with privacy in mind, Gemini Apps don’t train directly on your Gmail inbox or Google Photos library. To improve functionality over time, we train on info like prompts and responses in Gemini as well as summaries, excerpts, and inferences used to help answer your prompts,” says Google.
Google also assures that it will “obfuscate” or hide personal information whenever it uses the Gemini response for training. For example, if the chat includes data such as your car’s license plate details, credit card information, or intimate information about your medical history, that information will not be used.
The company also says that Personal Intelligence can get the answers wrong, or misinterpret your own personal information. A lot. Here are three examples where the answers can be off the mark and why (click the row to see Gemini’s reasoning).
Wrong answer: You might be a big fan of coffee shops and the model understands that as part of Personal Intelligence. When you ask it to “plan a trip to Australia”, it may inadvertently plan a trip where the itinerary is focused on coffee shops.
Reasoning: Based on a receipt in your email, the model might think you enjoy listening to heavy metal and offer suggestions on concerts nearby, when you actually purchased the tickets as a birthday gift for your brother.
Wrong answer: The model may mix up timing, noting that a graduate program application deadline from your email is in the past, when in fact it’s still upcoming.
Reasoning: It can misidentify a mother for a grandmother based on ambiguous text in emails or label a sibling as a friend.
Wrong answer: The model could recommend a follow-up book in a series because you bought the first one, failing to realize you returned it the next day.
Reasoning: You tell the model, “I don’t usually eat steak,” but it suggests a steakhouse recommendation again a week later even though you generally don’t prefer steak.
A live exhibit of Siri’s future
When Apple pulled its Siri ad, the company revealed that it needed more time to get the whole system right. Over time, it became clear that Apple’s AI stack, aka Apple Intelligence, was nowhere near as capable as Gemini, or other frontier AI products such as ChatGPT.
Apple eventually switched to ChatGPT integration as a stopgap solution. And just a day ago, the company announced that a highly customized version of Gemini will power the next-gen Foundation Models that are going to power Siri and Apple Intelligence.
With the upcoming upgrade, which is reportedly rolling out in Spring, Siri will get more conversational and inherently smarter. Plus, Apple already has a system called App Intents ready, which is going to allow Siri interaction with other apps.
Gemini already does that with Google’s own apps, and a few third-party options such as WhatsApp and Spotify, as well. With Personal Intelligence, Gemini is digging deeper within the Google ecosystem walls. And if you look at it through Apple’s lens, the upcoming avatar of Siri has its own ecosystem to exploit.
That was the original vision behind the “more personal Siri.” And it’s now increasingly likely that Apple’s dreams of an all-knowing, deeply personal assistant will materialize, even if they look eerily similar to Gemini’s Personal Intelligence.