Google Retires AI Test Kitchen App from Play Store and App Store, Shifts Focus to Web Platform
Google has officially withdrawn its AI Test Kitchen app from the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. The decision has been made to concentrate exclusively on the web-based experience of the platform. Launched last year, the AI Test Kitchen app was designed to let users engage with projects powered by various artificial intelligence models, including LaMDA 2. Its primary experiments involved the AI model breaking down a goal into different subsets and maintaining conversation topics, such as discussions about dogs.
Timing
The news of Google’s decision was confirmed to 9to5Google, who first noticed the app’s removal from the stores. Google’s official statement suggests that the focus on web-based AI Test Kitchen is primarily because it’s easier to update and maintain a single platform.
What Happened to Season 2 of AI Test Kitchen?
In November of the previous year, Google announced the second season of AI Test Kitchen, which was supposed to roll out a new series of experiments. However, these were never launched. Presently, the Test Kitchen only hosts a solitary language-to-music model experiment named MusicLM, unveiled at Google IO earlier this year. This action aligns with Google’s known practice of discontinuing apps and experiments without prior notice. It seems likely that Google is reshaping its strategy to compete with the rise of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI-focused tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthtropic’s Claude. This shift allows the tech giant to focus on enhancing features for its mainstream consumer products.
Google Labs: A New Platform for AI Experiments
In May, at the Google IO event, Google introduced a new platform known as Google Labs. This portal allows users to participate in generative AI-based experiments, including the MusicLM experiment previously mentioned.
The decision to pull the AI Test Kitchen app might initially seem to create confusion, given Google’s reputation for multiple product platforms for AI experiments. As of now, we have an AI Test Kitchen web page that hosts one experiment and a separate Google Labs page showcasing different projects. The latter includes Search Labs, the AI-powered note-taking project NotebookLM, AI-driven Workspace features, and the MusicLM project.
Conclusion
By focusing on a single web-based platform for AI Test Kitchen, Google aims to streamline updates and provide a centralized location for users to engage with AI projects. This move could make the company’s offerings in AI experimentation clearer and more user-friendly, while still pushing the boundaries of AI technology.
