Google Launches Dreambeans in India, Supporting 13 Languages

Google has launched its experimental AI app Dreambeans in India, marking its first expansion outside the U.S. The app aims to reach a broader audience by creating personalized visual stories based on users’ digital activities.

Available on both Android and iOS, Dreambeans now supports 13 local languages, including Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali, in addition to English. This launch follows the app’s availability to all eligible U.S. users aged 18 and older less than two months prior.

Introduced in June, Dreambeans utilizes information from various connected Google services, such as Calendar, Gemini, Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube, to generate illustrated stories about users’ interests and daily lives without requiring prompts. Recently, Google added a feature that employs its Veo video-generation model to animate images in select stories.

Google selected India as Dreambeans’ first international market due to significant interest from Indian users and the widespread use of its services in the country. According to Google product manager Gozde Oznur, India has a high overlap of users across Gemini, Gmail, and Google Photos.

Since its debut in the U.S., Dreambeans has recorded nearly 55,000 downloads, with about 63% occurring in September when the app became available to all eligible users. However, downloads dropped significantly by 84% month over month to approximately 5,500 in October.

In the first 30 days after its U.S. launch, Dreambeans achieved an estimated 29,000 downloads. In comparison, Meta’s Muse garnered 7.4 million downloads, ChatGPT reached 2.8 million, Grok Bot had 362,000, and Claude saw 155,000 during their respective first months. Unlike these general-purpose AI apps, Dreambeans focuses specifically on generating personalized stories.

While Dreambeans supports multiple widely spoken Indian languages, users can only select one language at a time for their generated stories. Although the app can access information across Google services in various languages, it currently cannot create stories that mix languages, which may limit its appeal in India, where many users frequently switch between languages.

The app’s reliance on information from users’ Google accounts raises privacy concerns. Dreambeans uses Google’s Personal Intelligence technology to personalize its stories based on connected services, which may contain sensitive personal information. Users can choose which services to connect and can disconnect them at any time. They can also delete their Dreambeans data within the app, and any information deleted from connected services is also removed from Dreambeans.

Users have the option to instruct Dreambeans to avoid certain subjects, including business-related content. Oznur noted that the app is only available to personal Gmail account holders, not enterprise users, and generated stories are visible solely to the account holder.

Oznur acknowledged that Dreambeans’ proactive approach may sometimes surface memories that users find distressing, such as stories involving deceased individuals. Users can request the app to stop showing specific subjects, similar to controls available in Google Photos.

Google is exploring ways to enhance Dreambeans, aiming to transition from merely providing personalized stories and recommendations to enabling users to take action based on the app’s suggestions.

Source: TechCrunch AI