Key Takeaways

  • Google is the title sponsor of the 2024 World Chess Championship, which kicks off today.
  • To raise awareness about the champisonship, Google is releasing a new ‘Chess champ’ Gem on Gemini.
  • FIDE’s livestream for the championship will feature ‘Chatting Chess,’ a Gemini-powered segment with AI commentary and chess trivia.



The 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship kicks off today, Monday, November 25, with Google as its key title sponsor. The tech giant, which has used chess as a proving ground for its AI models, is now using the same AI tech to offer a range of new chess-related experiences worldwide.

In collaboration with the International Chess Federation, the tech giant’s Arts & Culture division has launched a digital exhibition that explores the board game’s history, with archived photos, rare scoresheets, artworks, and more, “highlighting the evolution of the game and its key figures.”

A closeup image of pawns on a chess board.

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Further, and this is more up our beat, the tech giant announced that starting in December, users can expect a new Gem to make its way to Gemini on the web. Gems, for those unaware, are specialized AI models designed for specific tasks, which live within the broader Gemini tool. The AI tool comes loaded with certain Gems, including ‘Brainstormer,’ ‘Career guide,’ ‘Coding partner,’ and ‘Learning coach,’ with an option for users to create their own custom Gems too.

A screenshot of Gemini's upcoming chess gem.

Source: Google

Starting in December, however, users will find a new ‘Chess champ’ Gem, which will reportedly offer a “conversational way to experience chess within the Gemini app.” The feature will be limited to English Gemini users. Having a Gemini Advanced subscription is a prerequisite for all Gems.


Gemini has its own live segment for the championship

A GIF highlighting Google Labs' GenChess' capabilities.

Source: Google


Elsewhere, the giant also has a new animated ‘Celebrating Chess’ Doodle, highlighting the board game’s rich history and the fact that the 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship is underway. Further, sometime this week, the tech giant’s Google Labs AI division will rollout GenChess, an AI-powered experiment that will let users reimagine traditional chess pieces. The feature, powered by Google’s Imagen 3 text-to-image model, will be able to create a unique chess set for users based on text prompts, as seen in the short GIF below.

Lastly, to elevate the viewer experience during the World Chess Championship, FIDE’s livestream will have ‘Chatting Chess,’ a Gemini powered segment that will offer AI commentary to explain what’s happening in the game alongside chess trivia. “You can also expect to find interesting comparisons and relatable analogies to help understand key moves and strategies,” wrote Google.



A screenshot of Chatting Chess, a Gemini-powered summarizer that will offer context about live chess games.

Source: Google