Snap Inc. is leveraging its relationship with Google Cloud to use Gemini for powering generative AI experiences within Snapchat’s My AI chatbot. The multimodal capabilities of Gemini on Vertex AI will greatly increase the My AI chatbot’s ability to understand and operate across different types of information such as text, audio, image, video and code. Snapchatters can use My AI to take advantage of Google Lens-like features, including asking the chatbot “to translate a photo of a street sign while traveling abroad, or take a video of different snack offerings to ask which one is the healthiest option.”

Announcing the move at the Snap Partner Summit last week, the company emphasized its longstanding ties to Google Cloud, the platform on which Snapchat launched in 2011. The app presently reaches more than 850 million monthly active users.

In February 2023, Snapchat launched My AI powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Now, the company has turned to Google to go multimodal, processing images, video and text.

TechCrunch concedes “it makes sense for Snapchat to invest in new AI features, given that its competitors are also doing so,” but worries “there are already concerns about the potential risks My AI poses to users, especially children. By making the chatbot even smarter, the potential for risks may grow.”

But Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says the expansion of the partnership with Google Cloud “reinforces everything that’s so important to serving our community.”

The mission behind Snap is “empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. Now with Gemini in My AI, Snapchatters can learn so much more about the world, do it really quickly in the moment, and easily share that with friends,” Spiegel explained in an announcement.

Bloomberg reports that from a business perspective, the move makes sense for both companies: “Snap has been investing in new AI features as it competes with larger peers, such as Meta Platforms, which also has its own AI chatbot. Alphabet’s Google, meanwhile, has been seeking new corporate clients for its Gemini AI model as a way to boost business.”

While “it’s not clear at this stage whether Snap’s moving entirely away from OpenAI for its AI integrations, it certainly seems as though Snap will be leaning on Google’s tools more moving forward,” suggests Social Media Today.