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This whole blog post is seemingly about Google, not about the user. "Why We Built Antigravity" etc. "We want Antigravity to be the home base for software develo

by ddp26 11mo ago

This whole blog post is seemingly about Google, not about the user. "Why We Built Antigravity" etc. "We want Antigravity to be the home base for software development in the era of agents" - cool, why would I as the user care about that?

wiseowise 11mo ago
You wouldn’t. It’s made to suck out investor money and show that google does something, not to actually bring value. My crystal ball says it will be shutdown next year.
- evandrofisico 11mo ago
  Most of the AI products are not for the end user, they are just signaling shareholders and possible investors that the company is on the hype.
  - rvnx 11mo ago
    There is also mechanism inside Google that rewards teams that launches new products, more than the teams that actually maintain existing ones.
  - vecter 11mo ago
    This kind of cynicism is wild to me. Of course most AI products (and products in general) are for end users. Especially for a company like Google--they need to do everything they can to win the AI wars, and that means winning adoption for their AI models.
    - flipgimble 11mo ago
      http://killedbygoogle.com/ http://killedbygoogle.com/ - most Google products are for the temporary career advancement of some exec or product lead. Their only real product is advertising, everything else is a pretense to capture users attention and behaviors that they can auction off.
      - vecter 11mo ago
        This is different. AI is an existential threat to Google. I've almost stopped using Google entirely since ChatGPT came out. Why search for a list of webpages which might have the answer to your question and then manually read them one at a time when I can instead just ask an AI to tell me the answer? If Google doesn't adapt, they could easily be dead in a decade.
        satvikpendem 11mo ago
        That's funny. I stopped using ChatGPT completely and use Gemini to search, because it actually integrates with Google nicely as opposed to ChatGPT which for some reason messes up sometimes (likely due to being blocked by websites while no one dares block Google's crawler lest they be wiped off the face of the internet), and for coding, it's Claude (and maybe now Gemini for that as well). I see no need to use any other LLMs these days. Sometimes I test out the open source ones like DeepSeek or Kimi but those are just as a curiosity.
        aDyslecticCrow 11mo ago
        If web-pages don't contain the answer, the AI likely won't either. But the AI will confidently tell me "the answer" anyway. I've had atrocious issues with wrong or straight up invented information that I must search up every single claim it makes on a website. My primary workflow is asking AI questions vaguely to see if it successfully explains information I already know or starts to guess. My average context length of a chat is around 3 messages, since I create new chats with a rephrased version of the question to avoid the context poison. Asking three separate instances the same question in slightly different way regularly gives me 2 different answers. This is still faster than my old approach of finding a dry ground source like a standards document, book, reference, or datasheet, and chewing through it for everything. Now I can sift through 50 secondary sources for the same information much faster because the AI gives me hunches and keywords to google. But I will not take a single claim for an AI seriously without a link to something that says the same thing.
        SleepyMyroslav 11mo ago
  - jmpeax 11mo ago
    Google is still looking for investors?
    - rajamaka 11mo ago
      Of course, Alphabet exists to give returns to their shareholders.
- rishabhd 11mo ago
  funny my magic 8 ball says the same thing!
- meowface 11mo ago
  I know Google is quick to shut things down but these ultra-cynical ultra-skeptical HN takes are so tiresome at this point.
  - pydry 11mo ago
    This is what Google is like though. It is practically part of their corporate DNA.
    - meowface 11mo ago
      I do not believe that Google Antigravity is aimed at wooing investors. I believe it is intended to be a genuine superior alternative to Cursor and Kiro etc. and is attempting to provide the best AI coding experience for the average developer. Most of the other people (so far) in this sub-thread do not think this. They essentially have a conspiratorial view on it.
      - egorfine 11mo ago
        > I do not believe that Google Antigravity is aimed at wooing investors. There is no evidence to support any other motive. Any experienced (as in, 10+ years) developer knows better than to trust google with dev tools.
        crazygringo 11mo ago
        What dev tools has Google shut down? Colab is still going strong. Chrome inspector is still going strong. They've never released a full-fledged IDE before, have they? Which I don't count Apps Script editor as one, but that's been around for a long time as well. I think it's much more likely that Google believes this is the future of development and wants to get in on the ground floor. As they should.
        egorfine 11mo ago
        > Google believes this is the future of development This is hardly possible as this is definitely not the future of development which is obvious to developers who created this. Or to any developer for that matter. This is a stakeholders' feature.
- crazygringo 11mo ago
  Investor money? Google is highly profitable. It's not looking for investment, it's the one investing. Maybe you are confusing it with OpenAI?
  - kvirani 11mo ago
    I think they are referring to public market investors vs private investors. Meaning, their stock valuation.
tnolet 11mo ago
After using Google AI studio, Google Vertex, and Google Gemini Chat I honestly can't wait to use Google Antigravity! edit: Also Jules... snark off: I think the Google PMs should have coffee together and see if all of this sprawl makes any sense.
- koakuma-chan 11mo ago
  It does? Google AI studio is their developer dashboard. Google Vertex is their equivalent of Amazon Bedrock. Google Gemini Chat is their ChatGPT app for normies. Google Antigravity is their Cursor equivalent.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - vineyardmike 11mo ago
    I agree what you’ve listed makes sense as a product portfolio. But AI Studio is getting vibe coding tools. AI Studio also has a API that competes with Vertex. They have IDE plugins for existing IDEs to expose Chat, Agents, etc. They also have Gemini CLI for when those don’t work. There is also Firebase Studio, a browser based IDE for vibe coding. Jules, a browser based code agent orchestration tool. Opal, a node-based tool to build AI… things? Stich, a tool to build UIs. Colab with AI for a different type of coding. Notebook LM for AI research (many features now available in Gemini App). AI Overviews and AI mode in search, which now feature a generic chat interface. Thats just new stuff, and not including all the existing products (Gmail, Home) that have Gemini added. This is the benefit of a big company vs startups. They can build out a product for every type of user and every user journey, at once.
    - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
      I concede.
    - xnx 11mo ago
      Don't forget Gemini CLI In another 2 years we'll probably be back to just "Google" as digital agent that can do any research, creative, or coding task you can imagine.
layer8 11mo ago
More accurately, it should be neither about Google nor about the user, but about the product. Describe what the product is and does, don’t make assumptions about the user, and let the user be the judge of it.
DoomDestroyer 11mo ago
I swear most of these pages is to sell this to companies so they can force it onto developers. The whole webpage looks like something from Apple.
hereme888 11mo ago
All these companies were built by self-referential narcissists, and it seems to be their culture at the core.
jimbokun 11mo ago
Great point! Remember took my a while early in my career from changing my resume away from saying "I want to do this at my next job and make a lot of money" and towards "here is how I can make money and save costs for your company". Google didn't learn that lesson here. They are describing why us using Antigravity is good for Google, not why us using Antigravity is good for us.

by ddp26 11mo ago

wiseowise 11mo ago

You wouldn’t. It’s made to suck out investor money and show that google does something, not to actually bring value. My crystal ball says it will be shutdown next year.

evandrofisico 11mo ago
Most of the AI products are not for the end user, they are just signaling shareholders and possible investors that the company is on the hype.
- rvnx 11mo ago
  There is also mechanism inside Google that rewards teams that launches new products, more than the teams that actually maintain existing ones.
- vecter 11mo ago
  This kind of cynicism is wild to me. Of course most AI products (and products in general) are for end users. Especially for a company like Google--they need to do everything they can to win the AI wars, and that means winning adoption for their AI models.
  - flipgimble 11mo ago
    http://killedbygoogle.com/ http://killedbygoogle.com/ - most Google products are for the temporary career advancement of some exec or product lead. Their only real product is advertising, everything else is a pretense to capture users attention and behaviors that they can auction off.
    - vecter 11mo ago
      This is different. AI is an existential threat to Google. I've almost stopped using Google entirely since ChatGPT came out. Why search for a list of webpages which might have the answer to your question and then manually read them one at a time when I can instead just ask an AI to tell me the answer? If Google doesn't adapt, they could easily be dead in a decade.
      - satvikpendem 11mo ago
        That's funny. I stopped using ChatGPT completely and use Gemini to search, because it actually integrates with Google nicely as opposed to ChatGPT which for some reason messes up sometimes (likely due to being blocked by websites while no one dares block Google's crawler lest they be wiped off the face of the internet), and for coding, it's Claude (and maybe now Gemini for that as well). I see no need to use any other LLMs these days. Sometimes I test out the open source ones like DeepSeek or Kimi but those are just as a curiosity.
      - aDyslecticCrow 11mo ago
        If web-pages don't contain the answer, the AI likely won't either. But the AI will confidently tell me "the answer" anyway. I've had atrocious issues with wrong or straight up invented information that I must search up every single claim it makes on a website. My primary workflow is asking AI questions vaguely to see if it successfully explains information I already know or starts to guess. My average context length of a chat is around 3 messages, since I create new chats with a rephrased version of the question to avoid the context poison. Asking three separate instances the same question in slightly different way regularly gives me 2 different answers. This is still faster than my old approach of finding a dry ground source like a standards document, book, reference, or datasheet, and chewing through it for everything. Now I can sift through 50 secondary sources for the same information much faster because the AI gives me hunches and keywords to google. But I will not take a single claim for an AI seriously without a link to something that says the same thing.
        SleepyMyroslav 11mo ago
- jmpeax 11mo ago
  Google is still looking for investors?
  - rajamaka 11mo ago
    Of course, Alphabet exists to give returns to their shareholders.
rishabhd 11mo ago
funny my magic 8 ball says the same thing!
meowface 11mo ago
I know Google is quick to shut things down but these ultra-cynical ultra-skeptical HN takes are so tiresome at this point.
- pydry 11mo ago
  This is what Google is like though. It is practically part of their corporate DNA.
  - meowface 11mo ago
    I do not believe that Google Antigravity is aimed at wooing investors. I believe it is intended to be a genuine superior alternative to Cursor and Kiro etc. and is attempting to provide the best AI coding experience for the average developer. Most of the other people (so far) in this sub-thread do not think this. They essentially have a conspiratorial view on it.
    - egorfine 11mo ago
      > I do not believe that Google Antigravity is aimed at wooing investors. There is no evidence to support any other motive. Any experienced (as in, 10+ years) developer knows better than to trust google with dev tools.
      - crazygringo 11mo ago
        What dev tools has Google shut down? Colab is still going strong. Chrome inspector is still going strong. They've never released a full-fledged IDE before, have they? Which I don't count Apps Script editor as one, but that's been around for a long time as well. I think it's much more likely that Google believes this is the future of development and wants to get in on the ground floor. As they should.
        egorfine 11mo ago
        > Google believes this is the future of development This is hardly possible as this is definitely not the future of development which is obvious to developers who created this. Or to any developer for that matter. This is a stakeholders' feature.
crazygringo 11mo ago
Investor money? Google is highly profitable. It's not looking for investment, it's the one investing. Maybe you are confusing it with OpenAI?
- kvirani 11mo ago
  I think they are referring to public market investors vs private investors. Meaning, their stock valuation.

tnolet 11mo ago

After using Google AI studio, Google Vertex, and Google Gemini Chat I honestly can't wait to use Google Antigravity! edit: Also Jules... snark off: I think the Google PMs should have coffee together and see if all of this sprawl makes any sense.

koakuma-chan 11mo ago
It does? Google AI studio is their developer dashboard. Google Vertex is their equivalent of Amazon Bedrock. Google Gemini Chat is their ChatGPT app for normies. Google Antigravity is their Cursor equivalent.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- vineyardmike 11mo ago
  I agree what you’ve listed makes sense as a product portfolio. But AI Studio is getting vibe coding tools. AI Studio also has a API that competes with Vertex. They have IDE plugins for existing IDEs to expose Chat, Agents, etc. They also have Gemini CLI for when those don’t work. There is also Firebase Studio, a browser based IDE for vibe coding. Jules, a browser based code agent orchestration tool. Opal, a node-based tool to build AI… things? Stich, a tool to build UIs. Colab with AI for a different type of coding. Notebook LM for AI research (many features now available in Gemini App). AI Overviews and AI mode in search, which now feature a generic chat interface. Thats just new stuff, and not including all the existing products (Gmail, Home) that have Gemini added. This is the benefit of a big company vs startups. They can build out a product for every type of user and every user journey, at once.
  - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
    I concede.
  - xnx 11mo ago
    Don't forget Gemini CLI In another 2 years we'll probably be back to just "Google" as digital agent that can do any research, creative, or coding task you can imagine.

layer8 11mo ago

More accurately, it should be neither about Google nor about the user, but about the product. Describe what the product is and does, don’t make assumptions about the user, and let the user be the judge of it.

DoomDestroyer 11mo ago

I swear most of these pages is to sell this to companies so they can force it onto developers. The whole webpage looks like something from Apple.

hereme888 11mo ago

All these companies were built by self-referential narcissists, and it seems to be their culture at the core.

jimbokun 11mo ago

Great point! Remember took my a while early in my career from changing my resume away from saying "I want to do this at my next job and make a lot of money" and towards "here is how I can make money and save costs for your company". Google didn't learn that lesson here. They are describing why us using Antigravity is good for Google, not why us using Antigravity is good for us.