At the end of I/O, Google’s annual developer conference at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the company had said “AI” 121 times. That, essentially, was the crux of Google’s two-hour keynote — stuffing AI into every Google app and service used by more than two billion people around the world. Here are all the major updates from Google’s big event, along with some additional announcements that came after the keynote.
Gemini 1.5 Flash and Updates to Gemini 1.5 Pro
Google announced a brand new AI model called Gemini 1.5 Flash, which it says is optimized for speed and efficiency. Flash sits between Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Nano, the company’s smallest model that runs locally on devices. Google said that it created Flash because developers wanted a lighter and less expensive model than Gemini Pro to build AI-powered apps and services while keeping some of the features like a long context window of one million tokens that differentiate Gemini Pro from competing models. Later this year, Google will double Gemini’s context window to two million tokens, allowing it to process two hours of video, 22 hours of audio, more than 60,000 lines of code, or over 1.4 million words simultaneously.
Introducing Project Astra: Google’s Universal AI Assistant
Google showed off Project Astra, an early version of a universal assistant powered by AI. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis described it as Google’s version of an AI agent “that can be helpful in everyday life.” In a demonstration video, an Astra user navigates Google’s London office with their phone, pointing the camera at various objects and having a natural conversation about what it sees. Impressively, Astra correctly identifies the location of the user’s misplaced glasses without prior mention. The twist? The glasses themselves feature an onboard camera system, suggesting Google might be developing a competitor to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses.
Enhanced Google Photos with AI Capabilities
Google Photos, already adept at searching for specific images or videos, is set to become even more powerful with AI. Google One subscribers in the US will soon be able to ask complex queries like “show me the best photo from each national park I’ve visited.” Google Photos will use GPS information and its own judgment to present options and can generate captions for social media posts.
New AI Media Creation Engines: Veo and Imagen 3
Google introduced Veo and Imagen 3, its new AI-powered media creation engines. Veo, Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Sora, can produce high-quality 1080p videos longer than a minute and understand cinematic concepts like timelapse. Imagen 3, a text-to-image generator, offers superior text handling and photorealistic images with fewer artifacts, rivaling OpenAI’s DALL-E 3.
Revamping Google Search with AI Overviews
Google is making significant changes to Search. Most new features, like complex queries and vacation planning, will be available through Search Labs. However, AI Overviews, which provide AI-generated answers at the top of search results, will soon be rolled out to millions in the US and globally by year’s end. Integrated directly into Android, Gemini will offer context-specific assistance when Android 15 releases later this year.
WearOS 5 Battery Life Improvements
Google isn’t ready to launch the latest Wear OS, but it promises major battery life improvements. Wear OS 5 will consume 20% less power than Wear OS 4 during marathon use. Google also provided developers with a guide to create more power-efficient apps.
Android 15 Anti-Theft Features
Android 15 introduces Theft Detection Lock, an AI feature predicting phone theft and locking the screen accordingly. Detecting theft-related motions, the phone will lock quickly, making data access difficult for thieves.
Additional updates include digital watermarks for AI-generated content, Gemini integration in Gmail and Docs, an AI virtual teammate in Workspace, real-time scam detection during phone calls, and more.