OnePlus and Oppo are partnering with Google to bring Gemini 1.0 Ultra, “its most powerful AI model” to their devices later this year. The tie-up was announced during the Google Cloud Next ’24 event in Las Vegas. OnePlus and Oppo go so far as to claim they’re aiming to be the first to launch features based on the Gemini Ultra platform.
Gemini, previously known as Bard, is billed as Google’s “largest and most capable AI model.” You can think of it as its answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Gemini is available in both free and paid tiers. Ultra as you can probably tell by the name is the most powerful version of Gemini at the time of writing (relative to pro and nano).
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OnePlus, Oppo go “ultra” on AI
While nano is deigned to enable on-device AI on most devices running Android 14, Gemini Ultra goes above and beyond that what with it being Google’s “largest and most capable model for highly complex tasks.” Google charges a subscription fee to use the Ultra. How OnePlus and Oppo plan to deploy it in their devices remains to be seen.
In a press release shared with the media, the duo highlighted that they’ve launched “multiple Generative AI models to customers in China,” allowing “more than ten million users of devices such as Oppo Find X7 and OnePlus 12 to use AI Generated Content on the go.” OnePlus recently announced AI eraser, its first feature based on generative AI technology for select devices outside of China. It said the feature was based on “proprietary LLM” which has now been confirmed to be Oppo’s AndesGPT LLM.
AI eraser will be initially available on the OnePlus 12, OnePlus 12R, OnePlus 11, OnePlus Open, and OnePlus Nord CE 4 starting from April and it appears that more devices could be added to the list sometime in the near future. OnePlus will announce their availability and specific update details closer to launch. In the same announcement, OnePlus had said that it was working on more AI features.
Today’s announcement is scarce of technical details. All that the duo is sharing for now is that “future Oppo and OnePlus phones will be able to use AI for a variety of uses including summarising news articles, summarising audio, and generating new social media content.”
“Generative AI is a revolutionary technology and I believe Oppo and OnePlus are perfectly positioned to bring the benefits of AI to users all around the world,” Nicole Zhang, General Manager of AI Product for Oppo and OnePlus said in a prepared statement, adding that “By collaborating with Google to integrate both Gemini and Google Cloud AI into smartphones, and by forming alliances with other industry pioneers for a variety of AI experiences, we are thrilled to ambitiously broaden the scope of mobile AI innovations.”
OnePlus, Oppo coming to eat Samsung’s lunch?
OnePlus is playing catch up with Samsung. The South Korean tech giant leapfrogged into a dominant position earlier in the year with the launch of Galaxy AI-powered S24 series. A strategic partnership with Google has allowed Samsung to access its Gemini Pro and Imagen 2 on Vertex AI to power the S24’s cloud-based generative AI features and Gemini Nano for on-device tasks while also getting first dibs at features like Circle to Search. But OnePlus and Oppo are taking this a step further by bringing an even more powerful and potentially more capable Gemini Ultra to their devices, making a strong comeback despite a late start. Obviously, how well all this integrates inside their devices and how effectively they’re able to work, will ultimately decide who takes the cake. Watch this space for more updates.
