Once a miniature playground for the public to test Google’s thriving AI-powered tools, the AI Test Kitchen app has been removed for both Android and iOS, going to the web only.
Update: Google has shared additional details about shutting down these mobile apps.
When it first launched last August, AI Test Kitchen was home to three initial experimental demos with the promise of more to follow.
AI Test Kitchen will be home to a “rotating set of experimental demos” and three are currently available. They are based on the “latest version of LaMDA, which has significant security improvements.”
- Imagine: Name a place and LaMDA provides paths for your imagination to explore.
- List it: Name a goal or topic and see how much LaMDA can break it down into multiple lists of subtasks.
- Talk About It (Dogs Edition): Join the conversation and see where it goes. It’s just a fun, rather weird, open-ended chat.
While Google announced that there would be a “Season 2” for the app, even detailing the new tools that would appear, it seems those plans were scrapped at some point. Instead, AI Test Kitchen MusicLM won at this earlier Google I/O while dropping support for the earlier demos.
Update 8/1: A Google spokesperson has confirmed that while AI Test Kitchen’s mobile apps are shutting down, the playground itself will simply move to the web. In the hours after the mobile apps were removed, the apps themselves stopped working, forcing users to use the web experience instead.
The move is intended to make AI Test Kitchen faster and easier to update across all devices rather than pushing separate updates to Android, iOS, and the web.
We’ve updated our coverage to reflect that this latest change only affects the mobile apps.
On Monday, AI Test Kitchen mobile apps began to phase out, as they are no longer publicly listed on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store (although they may still be visible to those who previously installed them). Those who previously used the mobile app can continue to access MusicLM (and any future additions) through the web app.
Given that Google has always positioned AI Test Kitchen as a place for experimentation, it’s not much of a surprise to see these mobile apps shut down. That said, it’s still somewhat surprising to see the mobile apps seemingly discontinued less than a year after their initial public launch.
Hopefully, we’ll see Google continue to experiment with delightful AI demos in a more public environment rather than through a dedicated app in the future. At the very least, I hope the surprisingly listenable MusicLM isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
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