Google joins AI race running, offers text-to-image service through Search

The race to AI perfection has picked up pace with tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, and Google revealing something or the other almost every day. Now, weeks after Microsoft launched its Bing Image Creator, based on DALL-E 3, Google has announced that its AI-powered search experiment, Search Generative Experience (SGE), will let users create images from a text prompt.

Although in its initial stage, SGE is still capable of creating some impressive images from text prompts. Users can describe an image they want it to create and SGE will give them four options to choose from.

Users can further edit the prompt to make changes to the image they want to see. In Google’s blog post, it showed the original request for a capybara wearing a chef’s hat and cooking bacon. The description is then edited to make the whimsical animal cooking hash browns instead.

“As we continue to experiment with bringing generative AI capabilities into Search, we’re testing new ways to get more done as you’re searching – like creating an image that can bring an idea to life, or getting help on a written draft when you need a starting point,” Google said in its official blog post.

Google has already implemented AI-powered summaries of search results through SGE. It offers users a short overview of their search query. Another update to SGE lets users check grammar and other mistakes in a sentence straight from the Search bar.

To use Google’s AI image generation, users can simply type “draw (your prompt)” or “sketch (your prompt)” into the Google Search bar. It will create four different options to choose from.

Lately, the increasing number of AI tools has also raised concerns about the spread of misinformation and copyright violations. As per Google, SGE has been trained to block harmful or misleading content. For example, it won’t generate any images with photo-realistic human faces of notable public figures. The tool is also limited to users who are 18 and older.

Additionally, all the images by SGE will have embedded watermarks and metadata to indicate they are created by AI.