Google takes Dreambeans to India in bid to bring AI-generated personal stories to the masses

Google has launched its experimental AI app Dreambeans successful India, its archetypal marketplace extracurricular the U.S., arsenic the institution looks to pat the world’s second-largest net marketplace to bring personalized ocular stories drawn from users’ integer enactment to a broader audience.

On Monday, Google expanded Dreambeans, disposable connected Android and iOS, to India with enactment for 13 section languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali, alongside English. The motorboat comes little than 2 months aft Google made the app available to each eligible U.S. users aged 18 and older.

Introduced successful June, Google’s Dreambeans uses accusation from connected Google services, including Calendar, Gemini, Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube, to proactively make personalized, illustrated stories astir users’ interests and mundane lives, without requiring them to participate a prompt. The app initially featured static, AI-generated illustrations, but Google precocious added a diagnostic that uses its Veo video-generation exemplary to adjacent animate images successful prime stories.

Google said it chose India arsenic Dreambeans’ archetypal planetary marketplace due to the fact that of beardown involvement from Indian users seeking entree to the app and the wide usage of its services successful the country. India stood retired for its precocious overlap of users crossed Gemini, Gmail, and Google Photos, Google merchandise manager Gozde Oznur said during a property briefing.

Dreambeans has recorded astir 55,000 downloads successful the U.S. since its June debut, according to estimates from marketplace quality steadfast Sensor Tower shared with TechCrunch. About 63% of those downloads came successful September, erstwhile Google opened the app to each eligible U.S. users aged 18 and older. However, downloads dropped 84% period implicit period to astir 5,500 successful October.

In the archetypal 30 days aft Google opened Dreambeans to each eligible U.S. users, the app recorded an estimated 29,000 downloads, compared with 7.4 cardinal for Meta’s Muse, 2.8 cardinal for ChatGPT, 362,000 for Grok Bot, and 155,000 for Claude during their respective archetypal 30 days aft launch, Sensor Tower estimates show. However, dissimilar those general-purpose AI apps, Dreambeans focuses connected generating personalized stories alternatively of responding to a wide scope of idiosyncratic queries.

Even though Dreambeans supports galore wide spoken Indian languages, users tin prime lone 1 connection astatine a clip for their generated stories. The app tin gully connected accusation crossed Google services successful aggregate languages, but it cannot presently make stories that premix languages, Oznur said during the briefing.

That could bounds Dreambeans’ entreaty successful India, wherever galore radical regularly power betwixt languages, including Hindi and English, often mixing the 2 successful what is commonly known arsenic Hinglish.

Dreambeans’ dependence connected accusation from users’ Google accounts besides raises questions astir privateness and information access. The app uses Google’s Personal Intelligence technology to gully connected connected services and personalize its AI-generated stories. Those services tin incorporate delicate idiosyncratic accusation that immoderate users whitethorn not privation to stock with an AI app conscionable to person personalized content.

Users tin take which Google services to link to Dreambeans and disconnect them astatine immoderate time, Oznur said. They tin besides delete their Dreambeans information from wrong the app. Moreover, Oznur asserted that accusation deleted from the underlying connected services is besides removed from Dreambeans’ personalization system.

Users, Oznur said, tin archer Dreambeans to debar definite subjects, including business-related information, and the app volition effort to set its stories accordingly. She added that Dreambeans is disposable lone to idiosyncratic Gmail relationship holders, not endeavor users, and that generated stories are disposable lone to the relationship holder.

Dreambeans’ proactive attack besides carries the hazard of surfacing memories that users whitethorn find upsetting. Oznur acknowledged that Dreambeans could make stories involving radical who person died, for instance. She said users tin archer the app to halt showing definite subjects, comparing the diagnostic to controls successful Google Photos that fto users bounds which memories appear.

Oznur told reporters that Google is exploring ways to marque Dreambeans much actionable, moving beyond personalized stories and recommendations to assistance users enactment connected the app’s suggestions.