Blog

At I/O 2016 and 2017, Sundar Pichai said that Google is moving from “mobile first to AI first”. It involves “rethinking everyone [its] products and applying machine learning,” with photo search and smart response being early examples of this. However, for most of last year Google was thought to be lagging behind in its implementation of large language models, and this AI-first proclamation was largely forgotten.

Historically, I/O is where Google makes its biggest announcements of the year. That being said, the AI ​​race has forced the company to make more frequent announcements over the past year, not necessarily at the pace it would have otherwise. With I/O 2024 just days away, here’s what we expect Google to announce.

Last year, the stakes at I/O were raised, with many questioning Google’s ability to meet the AI ​​competition. Since then, we’ve had the base Gemini 1.0 and 1.5 family models, as well as various Gemini-branded capabilities in Google’s biggest apps. The company is in a better position than it was 12 months ago, but more needs to be done to lead the field.

To truly be the first AI company, Google needs to release features that are both transformational and widely available, especially to free users.

Applications

The biggest advantage Google has in the field of AI is the hundreds of millions of users it has in services that are central to everyday life. While there are so many new AI applications emerging for early adopters to try, Google has the ability to introduce most people to AI-based tools by putting these features into what they already use.

This brings us to Gmail and Docs/Sheets/Slides. Today, Google offers Help me write, organize, and visualize in these apps. These generative AI functions are fairly straightforward and deal with common tasks that humans need to perform every day. As for what’s next, Google previewed the sidebar at the last I/O, and it’s been in testing for the past few months.

I would say that all of this takes care of productivity somewhat, and I want to see more personal use cases, especially in Gmail and Calendar, of AI helping other aspects of people’s lives.

Other key apps that people use are Google Maps and Search. Search Generative Experience (SGE) was announced a year ago, and I wonder if Google deemed it mature enough to move out of the Labs preview program. I can see the benefit of directly providing an answer instead of requiring people to sift through the links. At the same time, the implications of this approach for publishers are profound, to say the least.

Google Maps is testing generative AI search to let you find places conversationally. Compared to web search, I feel that conversational search excels in a more limited domain.

Then there’s Gemini, the app and the website. Mobile lacks functionality, and it’s not really a good phone assistant, at least not nearly to the extent of the long-established Google Assistant. It certainly looks like the upcoming updates will finally address this.

Chrome is the other huge application that people use. It just added a shortcut for Gemini in the address bar, which is quite handy. Historically, we don’t really see the browser discussed at I/O. I’m curious about Google’s full vision of what AI in Chrome looks like. So far, it’s introduced Help me write, a section organizer, and a topic generator in recent months, but it’s still nothing particularly transformative, especially compared to the AI-driven competition.

Platforms

Then there is the platform on which people use these apps. Google details what’s coming with Android 15. How big those updates are is a separate question after last year’s surprisingly limited presence on the scene and quieter public release.

The primary use of generative AI on Android today is the Gemini Nano, powering Gboard Smart Replies, Messages Magic Compose, and Recorder summarization. On-device AI will be important in helping reduce cloud costs and important in making Android the place to build AI-generation mobile apps.

However, with the exception of wallpapers, we haven’t really seen AI applied to the user experience. Rethinking the OS for AI is a big question. For example, what does a smarter home screen, lock screen or notification shade look like? What can you do with macros, shortcuts on iOS or a third-party Tasker on Android, and how can Google replicate and automate this with AI?

Comparisons will be made when Apple releases iOS 18 later this year, which is expected to have a range of AI features on the device. Of course, the big difference is how Android and its apps can be updated more easily than Apple’s monolithic operating system.

On the platform front, there’s Wear OS 5 and (presumably) the long-rumored Android XR. Meta is working to make Horizon OS available to other handset makers, with Google’s partnership with Samsung still working in the background.

Hardware

Moving up another layer is the hardware running these operating systems and applications. Google unexpectedly announced the Pixel 8a, as well as the standalone Pixel Tablet, a week before I/O. Officially, this was to give 8a its own moment. The average ranger would get lost in the shuffle of other I/O news.

The question now is whether Google will tease the Pixel 9 series at I/O 2024. That happened with the Pixel 7, but not the Pixel 8. One argument for that not happening is that the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro are still solid phones with some escaped. For example, we’re still waiting for Zoom Enhance to launch, and it would seem odd if Google announced the next phone in any capacity before finalizing the Pixel 8’s feature set. More anecdotally, in the US, Google is still heavily promoting the 8- those series as part of the NBA playoffs.

What I’ve seen Google tease is the ‘Pixie’ AI hearing assistant. The precedent here would be how Google showed off the new Google Assistant at I/O a few months before the Pixel 4 launch. That could help generate excitement, though less if it won’t be available on existing devices.