Google I/O 2024: Here's everything Google just announced | TechCrunch

🌈 Abstract

The article summarizes the key announcements and updates from Google's I/O 2023 developer conference, with a focus on the company's advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) across various products and services.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Google I/O 2023 Keynote Highlights

1. What were the major AI-related announcements made by Google during the I/O 2023 keynote?

• Google unveiled a revamped AI-powered search engine, an AI model with an expanded context window of 2 million tokens, AI helpers across its suite of Workspace apps, tools to integrate its AI into developers' apps, and a future vision for AI called Project Astra.
• The company showcased a call scam detection feature for Android that uses on-device AI to detect common scammer tactics.
• Google announced new security and privacy protections for Android, including on-device live threat detection and an AI-powered Theft Detection Lock feature.
• Google Maps will soon have a new layer of geospatial augmented reality content, and Wear OS 5 will focus on improved battery life and performance.
• Google introduced a new way to filter search results for just text-based links, and unveiled a new open-source framework called Firebase Genkit to help developers build AI-powered applications.

2. How did Google emphasize the importance of AI during the I/O 2023 keynote?

• Google referenced AI a total of 121 times during the 110-minute keynote, with CEO Sundar Pichai highlighting the company's focus on the "hard work" of AI.
• The company showcased numerous AI-powered features and capabilities across its products, from search and Workspace apps to Android and Google Maps.

[02] AI Advancements in Google Products

1. What are some of the key AI-powered features coming to Google products?

• Google Photos will get an "Ask Photos" feature powered by the Gemini AI model, allowing users to search their photo collections using natural language queries.
• Gmail will gain the ability to search, summarize, and draft emails using Gemini AI technology, as well as take actions like processing e-commerce returns.
• The Gemini AI model will be integrated into Android, enabling features like dragging and dropping AI-generated images into apps, and "Ask this video" functionality on YouTube.
• Gemini model capabilities will also be added to the Google Maps platform, allowing developers to display AI-generated summaries of places and areas in their apps.

2. How is Google expanding the capabilities of its Gemini AI model?

• Google is adding a new 27-billion-parameter Gemma model to the Gemma 2 family, optimized to run efficiently on next-generation GPUs and TPUs.
• The company is also introducing Gemini Live, which allows for "in-depth" voice chats with the Gemini AI on smartphones, with the ability to see and respond to users' surroundings.
• Gemini Nano, the smallest version of Google's Gemini AI, will be built directly into the Chrome desktop client, enabling developers to use the on-device model to power their own AI features.

3. What other AI-powered developments did Google announce at I/O 2023?

• Google unveiled Imagen 3, the latest iteration of its Imagen generative AI model, which is said to be more accurate, creative, and detailed in its image generation.
• The company also announced Veo, an AI model that can create 1080p video clips around a minute long based on text prompts.
• The AI-powered Circle to Search feature on Android will now be able to solve more complex problems, including physics and math word problems.