Google has a whole lot of AI news coming out of its developer-focused I/O conference. The company’s keynote showed off key products like its flagship Gemini AI model, which now has a faster Flash version to compete with the new and faster GPT iteration, GPT-4o that OpenAI announced a day earlier.
Google is also redesigning search with AI Overviews that promise to summarize the web in response to complex queries and a new Ask Photos assistant that can dig through your archive for the answer to a question like “what’s my license plate?” However, the flaws of AI search were unintentionally highlighted when its video search demo offered some terrible advice about how to fix a problem with your camera.
Android is adding a scam detection feature that can listen into calls to pick up on potential flimflammery, while Chrome will add Gemini Nano to power AI features that can be processed locally.
On day two of the event, Google also released more details about a new beta release of Android 15 and other new details of the next big update for its mobile OS.
When it comes to other kinds of hardware, Google TVs are becoming home hubs, and new Home APIs will give app developers access to all kinds of automations. Streaming apps like Max and Peacock are coming to Android Auto, and Wear OS 5 will extend battery life for smartwatches.
Read on for all the details as Google I/O 2024 continues.