Google ‘Learn About’ Experimental AI Tool With Educational Style Responses Released

Google released a new experimental artificial intelligence (AI) tool on Monday aimed at helping users learn about new topics. Dubbed Learn About, the tool is different from the Mountain View-based tech giant’s usual AI offerings, such as Gemini or AI Overviews. The experimental tool shows the information in a visual and interactive style and picks the data from educational sources. The Google Learn About AI tool is built using the LearnLM large language model (LLM), instead of the Gemini AI models.

The tech giant detailed the Learn About tool in a sign-up page. Calling it a “conversational learning companion”, Google said that the experimental tool will help users in fulfilling their learning goals. The platform is currently only available to select users in the US, and other regions do not have access to it.

Interestingly, the tech giant used a different AI model dubbed LearnLM for the AI tool. The AI model was unveiled during the Google I/O event, and the company said that it is more grounded in educational and research data and is tailored to how people learn.

Learn About uses visual and interactive styles and shares images, articles and videos to help users learn about new topics. The Verge tested the tool and found that the same prompt shared with Gemini and Learn About generated significantly different output.

For a certain prompt, Gemini reportedly showed a response quoting Wikipedia. However, Learn About reportedly shared an image from an educational website and added related content to enable users to deep dive into the topic and related concepts. The AI tool is said to also avoid the common hallucinations experienced by Google’s AI models.

Learn About also offers interactive guides on complex topics where users can systematically navigate through a series of concepts to fully understand them. Further, it also highlights misconceptions associated with the topic to help users avoid them.

Separately, Google has also released a new Utilities extension for the Gemini app. The extension will enable the Gemini AI assistant on Android devices to control smartphone functions. It can control first-party apps and functions such as alarm, timer, volume control, camera, and more.