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Google is giving Drive users nudges to make use of Gemini features

The Google Drive app logo.
Google

Google Drive users are being introduced to a recent tool in an easy to understand way, as Google is adding prompts to make use of its Gemini AI assistant technology. Though Gemini has already been accessible in Drive, the new prompts, or “nudges”, appear prominently displayed and offer quick and simple ways to start using the technology.

As reported by Android Authority, the nudges include suggestions like “Learn about Gemini in Drive,” “Summarize a folder,” or “Learn about a file.” These prompts appear at the top of your Google Drive page, beneath the “Welcome to Drive” message and above the suggested folders.

Google

Exactly what the Gemini prompts will involve depends on the content of the page you’re currently looking at. On the drive homepage, for example, you’ll find more general prompts for learning about Gemini. While if you navigate to a specific folder in your drive, you’ll see an option to summarize the folder’s contents. That means that whether or not you see these nudges will depend on your activity in Drive and what files you keep there.

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The idea is to make it clearer to users how they can interact with and benefit from Gemini, outside of the typical functions that we are used to seeing from digital assistants. The feature has begun rolling out in Drive already but it make take some time to arrive for everyone, with a wait of 15 days or more to reach all users.

The nudges to use Gemini are part of Google’s push to bring new Gemini features to a range Google products like Workspace, where Gemini can detect and translate text messages into your preferred language and offer features for video calling like increasing sharpness of an image, adjusting lighting, and adjusting sound. Gemini is also integrating into Android Auto to replace Google Assistant, and can also be used to control your smart home devices.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
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Update: Google has responded to Digital Trends’ queries. The story has been updated with company’s statement below.
The rise of generative AI has been a fairly messy process, especially from fair usage ethics and copyright perspective. AI giants are inking deals with publishers to avoid legal hassles, while at the same time, they are embroiled in copyright tussles in courts in multiple countries.
As the ravenous appetite for training AI on user data grows, we might be in for another ethical conundrum. Multiple users on X and Reddit have shared demonstrations of how Google’s latest Gemini 2.0 series AI model can remove watermarks from copyright-protected images.
Going by the before/after samples of images, it seems Gemini is doing a fairly good job of removing the watermarks. Notably, it’s not only erasing those banner-style watermarks, but also fairly complex overlays with design and stylized text elements.
https://x.com/ajiteshleo/status/1901484196972945872?s=61
The model in question is the Gemini 2.0 Flash, which was released earlier this year and got a reasoning upgrade, as well. It is worth noting here that you can not remove the watermark if you are using the mobile or desktop version of the Gemini 2.0 Flash model. Trying to do so returns a message like this:
“Removing watermarks from images without the explicit permission of the copyright holder is illegal in most countries. It is important to respect the copyright laws and intellectual property rights. If you want to use an image with a watermark, you should contact the copyright holder and ask for permission.”
You can, however, try and remove the watermark from images in the Google AI Studio. Digital Trends successfully removed watermarks from a variety of images using the Gemini 2.0 Flash (Image Generation) Experimental model.
 
It is a violation of local copyright laws and any usage of AI-modified material without due consent could land you in legal trouble. Moreover, it is a deeply unethical act, which is also why artists and authors are fighting in court over companies using their work to train AI models without duly compensating them or seeking their explicit nod.

How are the results?
A notable aspect is that the images produced by the AI are fairly high quality. Not only is it removing the watermark artifacts, but also fills the gap with intelligent pixel-level reconstruction. In its current iteration, it works somewhat like the Magic Eraser feature available in the Google Photos app for smartphones.
Furthermore, if the input image is low quality, Gemini is not only wiping off the watermark details but also upscaling the overall picture. .
https://x.com/kaiju_ya/status/1901099096930496720?s=61
The output image, however, has its own Gemini watermark, although this itself can be removed with a simple crop. There are a few minor differences in the final image produced by Gemini after its watermark removal process, such as slightly different color temperatures and fuzzy surface details in photorealistic shots.

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