Google introduced Whisk, an AI tool that will revolutionise people’s engagement with generative AI. Unlike a text-to-image generator that requires one input text to generate a single image, Whisk uses an image prompt where instead of a text, users upload photos of real subjects, scenes, or types to get a single AI masterpiece.
Whisk is characterized as a ‘‘creative tool,’ which means it must be used for finding inspiration as fast as possible rather than for editing to a professional level. Users can play with the possibilities of remixing the inputs and create new and exciting illustrations such as toys, pins or stickers.
However, as text prompts can be added afterwards to adjust and detail, it remains a friendly tool for free and open imagination making Whisk a safe choice for that.
Built upon Google’s Gemini AI platform and Imagen 3, the latest innovation from DeepMind, Whisk uses a dual-layer process. When users upload images, Gemini generates captions that are processed by Imagen 3 to create the final image. Rather than copying the uploaded images, Whisk captures their essence, allowing for imaginative reinterpretation.
Google’s blog post highlights the creative freedom Whisk offers. However, it also notes potential variations in the final output, such as changes in height, hairstyle, or skin tone.
Whisk is something Google is currently doing as a way of continuing to spread artificial intelligence technology and at the same time, demonstrating how it can be creatively applied. Whisk, as said by Thomas Iljic, Google Labs’ Director of Product Management is designed that way to meet the need for rapid visual navigation rather than to work for pinpoint accurate changes on the pixels.
Available at this time only as a Google Labs application for U.S. users, Whisk is still in its infancy. Its launch shows the desire of Google in the race of AI along with competing companies such as OpenAI.
Experts consider Whisk as a major achievement. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities described it as Google flexing its muscles with the AI announcement, reestablishing itself at the top of the game in this technology. He highlighted DeepMind as one of the strategic moving pieces of Google’s product portfolio, and a set of other great things that Google is planning to release in 2025.
In addition to pre-emptively widening the range of generative AI practices, with Whisk, Google offers people the opportunity to search for creative possibilities.