PaLM 2
Google's May 2023 answer to ChatGPT — powered Bard and 25 products in four sizes, Gecko to Unicorn.
About
Announced at Google I/O on May 10, 2023, PaLM 2 (Pathways Language Model 2) was Google's direct response to ChatGPT, immediately becoming the engine behind Bard — which simultaneously dropped its waitlist and expanded to 180+ countries. Trained more heavily on multilingual text across 100+ languages, with strong reasoning and coding abilities spanning 20+ programming languages.
PaLM 2 shipped in four sizes — Gecko (lightweight enough for on-device mobile use), Otter, Bison, and Unicorn — and powered 25 Google products including Workspace's Duet AI, plus specialized variants Med-PaLM 2 and Sec-PaLM. It was Google's flagship until the Gemini series arrived in December 2023. Proprietary and API-only via Vertex AI; now a historical entry.
Specs
Context window
Pricing
Free quota
API access
Weights
Released
Benchmarks
Provider-reported unless a source says otherwise. Benchmarks are marketing-adjacent by nature — treat them as directional.
Use cases
Trust score — 6/10
Scored 6/10 (metrics tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via vendor site/docs/GitHub and reputable coverage, wave 71; Trending score 50/100 from researcher assessment.