This year’s Google I/O 2024 conference was done in one day, but that was long enough to get a sense of the scale of the company’s growth and what it will be focusing on in the next few months.
Similar to last year, Artificial Intelligence (AI) was the dominant factor—as it currently is across the tech world and the global economy. AI is deeply embedded in many sectors, from online retail to online casinos. In fact, the latter industry is a good example of how versatile AI can be.
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The AI arms race was to the fore in the build-up to this year’s developer conference, as OpenAI launched GPT-4.0 less than 24 hours before Google’s big event.
The variety and depth of updates presented at Google I/O 2024 show that the company is putting AI at the core of what it does, encouraging developers to engage with its products extensively. Here are some of the biggest highlights from this year’s conference.
The big and small of Gemini
Gemini 1.5 Pro has made headlines in recent weeks, as one of the most impressive LLMs in the Google stable. As of May 2024, it became available in 180 countries through the Google Gemini API. However, the conference also had news from the other end of the Gemini scale.
Gemini Nano is Google’s smallest AI product and was designed to be deployed locally to perform a variety of tasks, including summarization and writing assistance. Nano will now be available with Chrome’s desktop client, beginning with Chrome 126, and Google hopes to bring it to other browser operators later in the year.
The Gemini Nanotechnology itself is also getting a multimodality upgrade for videos, text, audio, and images, and will be able to run on most smartphones.
Android changes
On the Android front, the big news was that Google Assistant is to be replaced by Gemini as the default AI tool. Google states that the multimodal Gemini Nano features will work through the Android TalkBack technology to give users a better experience.
Gemini Nano currently works with YouTube, Gmail, and Google Messages, and Gemini for Android enables caption generation and question-answering. But it seems likely that an even deeper integration with Play Store applications and the mobile OS could be on the horizon.
Project Astra
Project Astra, produced by DeepMind, was also showcased at Google I/O 2024. This visual chatbot has a degree of spatial understanding and can cope with contextual input. It is based around the Google Lens technology, which takes input through a smartphone’s mic and camera and conversationally engages the user.
Search tech boost
Google is still primarily a web search company. The majority of its profits are derived from advertising associated with search results, and AI could potentially pose a threat to that core business model. So, unsurprisingly, the company is trying to utilize AI to future-proof its search functions.
One example of the way that Google is incorporating AI into search engine results is the Search Generative Experience (SGE), through which the company is planning to roll out overviews of AI to millions of Google users—hoping it will reach a billion users by 2025.
At the same time, Google has announced that it is increasing the role of Gemini in its search products through the addition of a planning feature. The idea is to provide users with a feature that will take the hard work out of planning events such as parties or road trips.
New workspace tech
Google also announced developments affecting Google Workspace. Services including Docs, Drive, Gmail, Slides, and Sheets will now incorporate Google 1.5 Pro as the default LLM, with the intention of offering users a bigger context window, along with several other additional features. Workspace Alpha users can use Gemini, while Workspace Labs currently includes Gemini 1.5 Pro.
Veo video creator
Google’s work on Imagen-Video and the Lumiere project is the foundation for a new text-to-video generator called Veo. Google says that this new technology will be able to create videos longer than one minute in 1080p. For the time being, Veo will only be available to selected content creators as a preview in the VideoFX platform, but users are able to join a waitlist to gain access to it, and Google is clearly hoping that Veo will stand up well against Sora, from OpenAI.
Imagen 3 update
VideoFX users will also be able to try out Imagen 3 through a private preview. This text-to-image generator is the latest of its type produced by the company and, according to Google, offers a greater understanding of prompts. Google also claims that it will deliver far greater detail and realistic images that throw up fewer artefacts.
Google maps augmented
Users of Google Maps will be able to benefit from a new feature on their phones. The new technology will provide geospatial augmented reality content and will be piloted later in the year. It is intended that users will be able to click on available AR content whenever they search for a new location, and if they are exploring a location remotely, the same AR content will be available in Google Street View. There will even be the option to share the experience through a QR code.
Introducing Trillium
There was a tantalizing glimpse of the future of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), with news of the sixth generation TPU, called Trillium. Details were scarce at the conference, but it was shared that it incorporates the third generation of SparseCore and could provide up to x4.7 computing performance compared to the fifth TPU generation.
Smarter TVs
The Google TV operating system has also received a boost. Gemini technology has now been added to the system to generate accurate descriptions for TV shows and movies. If there is no description available through the home screen, the AI technology will generate a description, translating it into the viewer’s preferred language. The descriptions will also be tailored to the user’s preferences for TV content, actors, and genres, providing a personalized smart TV curation experience.
Pixel Buzz
Strictly speaking, the Pixel 8A was not part of Google I/O 2024 as it was released in the previous week, but it was the subject of much conversation and hype at the event, thanks partially to the warm reception for the Pixel 8 series. The Pixel 8A is a budget model, and the first in the series to feature a display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. In addition, it incorporates the new Tensor G3 chipset, like the Pixel 8 Pro, along with Ultra HDR technology.
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