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The squeak of birds, the buzzing of insects, the soft tap of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s shoes as he jumps across the stage. The sounds of spring are here, so you know what that means: Google I/O is blooming.
Hot on the heels of Apple’s iPad launch event last week, Google is pulling out all the stops for its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, May 14. The event will take place at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, just down the street from Google. campus. The keynote begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. PDT and, as usual, will be streamed live. Expect to hear and see updates on Android 15, Google Search, the already announced Pixel 8A budget phone, and an absolute torrent of news on the tech topic of the decade: artificial intelligence.
AI all the way
While Google’s Gemini AI platform has seen some growing pains, the company is still eager to put its generative AI offerings into each and every one of its services: search, its photo and video tools, and its suite of tools. workspace like Gmail and Google Docs. Google has also been slowly incorporating AI features into its Google Assistant, so it will be interesting to see if those new capabilities result in a more evolved form of natural language voice assistant, or rather a true AI assistant that acts as an agent to perform tasks across all your connected services.
Of course, the company will show off features of its upcoming Android 15 mobile operating system, deeper in-car integration via Android Auto, and its Wear OS smartwatch software. Expect each of them to be newly endowed with all sorts of exciting (and maybe a little creepy) AI-powered features.
Google’s AI announcements could also offer a hint at any news Apple may have in store for its WWDC developer conference keynote, which takes place on June 10. Just a couple of months ago, it became known that Apple may be working with Google to integrate the latter’s Gemini AI platform into iOS. Neither company has officially confirmed the news, and it’s not entirely clear what such an uneasy partnership between the two mobile heavyweights might look like on the iPhone. Google’s ads, presumably loaded with artificial intelligence, could provide a clue as to what’s brewing on Apple devices.
Difficult Where?
I/O is a software-focused event, but that hasn’t stopped Google from using the keynote to announce new hardware devices in the past. If the dearth of recent leaks about the company’s ambitions is any indicator, this year may be thinner on the hardware front than previous I/Os.
Generally speaking, Google doesn’t mind keeping its new devices a secret before a big public event. Details about your upcoming Pixel 8A phone filtered out A couple of weeks ago, but Google officially announced the device last week. (The phone will go on sale on May 14, the same day of I/O.) Google will likely talk about its new Pixel on the block and how it will use Android 15 and Gemini AI.
It is always possible that another device will appear. Google announced its first Pixel Fold at I/O last year, and it’s probably due for an update at some point, but we don’t expect it to arrive this month. Google has also been silent on any new augmented reality technology it’s working on, although it has shown off concepts like Project Starline and smart glasses with language translation at previous I/O events. We really hope that with so much attention paid to the development of artificial intelligence, Google will probably make its AI announcements the star of the show.
Watch this space
Google’s keynote begins, which should begin with comments from Pichai before the team releases all the news. Tuesday May 14 in 10am PDT (1:00 p.m. Eastern time). You can see it on Google I/O website or on Google Youtube channel. The video is also embedded here on this page.
Beyond the main conference, there is a subsequent developer-focused keynote starting at 1:30 pm PDT (4:30 EDT) viewable using the same links as the first broadcast.