Google Removes AI Test Kitchen App from Play Store and App Store: What It Means for Users

Google has removed its AI Test Kitchen app from both the Play Store and the App Store, opting to concentrate exclusively on the web platform. Launched last year, AI Test Kitchen was designed to let users engage with various projects powered by distinctive AI models, including LaMDA 2. The initial experiments aimed to analyze how well the model could decompose a goal into specific components and maintain a discussion about dogs to evaluate its focus.

In a statement to 9to5Google, which first reported the app's removal, Google confirmed its shift toward a web-only experience, emphasizing that this approach simplifies the process of implementing updates across a single platform.

Last November, Google announced "Season 2" of AI Test Kitchen with fresh experiments; however, these updates never materialized. Currently, the Test Kitchen features only one active project: a text-to-music language model called MusicLM, introduced earlier this year at Google I/O.

This decision aligns with Google's trend of discontinuing apps and experimental projects without prior notice. Additionally, amidst the growing popularity of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, Google may focus more on enhancing features for its consumer products.

During Google I/O in May, the company unveiled a new portal named Google Labs that allows users to sign up for generative AI experiments. This portal notably features the previously mentioned MusicLM.

Google’s strategy can often lead to confusion, with multiple platforms for AI experimentation. We now have an AI Test Kitchen page showcasing a single experiment, while the Google Labs page displays various projects, including Search Labs, the AI-driven note-taking feature NotebookLM, AI enhancements in Workspace, and the MusicLM project.