Top Tech Trends from Google I/O 2024

Here are the key announcements showcased at Google I/O event 2024. Additionally, we will also look at the key takeaways that entrepreneurs take from the event to highly digitise their business.

• Google I/O 2024, marking the second consecutive year the company has held it for one day.
• The developer conference was a way to assert the company’s formidable AI push across its product portfolio.
• Google rolled out AI upgrades for several services, including Android, web search, Workspace, and more.

1. Gemini updates

One of Google’s most powerful large language models, Gemini 1.5 Pro, is now available globally for developers.

On the other hand, the company is bringing its smallest product, Gemini Nano, to the Chrome desktop client. Gemini Nano is designed for local use for a wide range of tasks, such as summarisation and ‘help me write’ functionality.

Gemini Nano will be available in Chrome starting Chrome 126 as the company negotiates with other browser vendors to bring similar functionality.

Additionally, Gemini Nano is getting a multimodality upgrade for text, images, videos, and audio. Gemini Nano with Multimodality is designed to run on smartphones.

2. Search upgrades

Google is a web search company that still makes a bulk of its profits from search advertising. And AI is touted to threaten the company’s dominance, so why not integrate AI with search?

Microsoft’s experiment with Bing, while yielding good results at first, hasn’t generated the desired traction. Still, that’s no reason for Google to sit behind and get caught off guard again.

The company is rolling out AI overviews to millions of users through the Search Generative Experience (SGE). Google aims to enable AI-powered overviews in search for one billion users before the end of the year.

3. Android updates

The biggest Android update is that Gemini is replacing Google Assistant as the default AI assistant. Gemini Nano’s multimodal functions will give users an expressive smartphone experience through Android’s TalkBack feature.

This means a deeper integration with the mobile OS and Play Store applications could be on the cards. It currently works with Gmail, YouTube, and Google Messages. For instance, users can task Gemini with finding relevant information in a YouTube video. Gemini for Android already supports caption generation for photos, question-answering for articles, and more.

To this end, Google demoed DeepMind’s Project Astra, a visual chatbot with spatial understanding that can accept contextual inputs. Google Lens forms the basis of Project Astra, which receives inputs through the phone’s camera and mic and engages the user conversationally.

The Circle to Search function, which allows users to perform web searches by circling, scribbling, or highlighting, now supports higher complexities, including those of physics and mathematics. The handy feature caters to pupils and offers step-by-step instructions for solving equations, among other problems.

4. Workspace updates

Google Workspace services such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, Slides, and Sheets will now have Google 1.5 Pro as the accompanying LLM, allowing users to have a larger context window and other advanced features.

For now, Gemini 1.5 Pro is available for Workspace Labs and Gemini for Workspace Alpha users.

5. New launches

Google is out with Veo, a text-to-video generator that can create 1080p videos longer than a minute. Veo derives Google’s expertise from its work on the Lumiere model and Imagen-Video. Users can join a waitlist, but for now, Veo is available only for select creators as a private preview within VideoFX. Veo can directly compete with OpenAI’s Sora.

Also only available in private preview in VideoFX is Imagen 3, Google’s latest iteration of the text-to-image generator. Imagen 3 is more accurate at understanding prompts and is touted to deliver greater detailing and fewer artifacts for realistic images.

6. Hardware

Google launched the Pixel 8A a week before Google I/O 2024, so it is technically not part of the conference roster. Nevertheless, the smartphone is an anticipated model after the success of the Pixel 8 series.

This is the first budget Pixel model with a 120 Hz display refresh rate. It also rocks the Tensor G3 chipset, similar to the Pixel 8 Pro. Unlike its predecessors, the smartphone has an Ultra HDR feature and has a month’s headstart before Apple’s WWDC 2024.

Beyond the shimmering smartphones, developers will also have a new generation of Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) to play with later this year. Google teased its sixth-generation TPU, Trillium.

Google revealed limited details on Trillium but noted that it comes with the third generation of SparseCore and offers 4.7 times higher computing performance per chip over the fifth generation.

7. Ask Google Photos: A New Way to Interact with Memories

Google Photos has evolved into a more interactive platform within past years and it is not merely a photo back up app. Till now, users could search similar photos using keywords. Now, users can ask various questions right in their photo libraries, such as “What was my license plate?” and receive accurate responses instead of all the photos with license plates. Behind the Ask Google Photos, there is Gemini working under the hood.

8. Notebook LM: The Future of Multi-Modality and Long Context

Notebook LM is one of the great tools from Google, that lets users transition from reading to asking questions to writing, all with AI thought partners designed to enhance productivity and personalization.

In the event, we saw how users can generate comprehensive guides, summarize notes, create quizzes, and even offer audio overviews, mimicking a conversational partner. This application excels in delivering information in multiple formats yet customizing everything for specific users.

9. Next level DeepMind Approach: Transform Any Input into Meaningful Output

Google’s DeepMind Approach continues to push boundaries with its capabilities to convert any input into meaningful output. Its applications are vast, from enabling robots to navigate complex 3D environments to solving Olympiad-level math problems. For example, Google’s AlphaFold 3, a sub-set in DeepMind, can study biological modules for disease understanding and drug research.

10. Imagen 3: Revolutionizing Photo Generation

Imagen 3, Google’s highest-quality text-to-image model, is set to transform the creative industry. It can generate realistic images and videos, providing directors and content creators with innovative tools for storytelling. In the Google I/O Event 2024, we learnt how Imagen can even provide better detail, richer lighting and fewer noises, wherever possible.

11. AI-Organized Search: The Future of Google Search

Google’s search capabilities have been significantly upgraded with the sixth generation of TPUs, Trillium. These custom ARM-based CPUs, alongside NVIDIA’s GPUs, enhance cloud-based content creation and entertainment. The focus is on generative AI that scales with human curiosity, providing real-time information and enabling multi-step reasoning. Google aims to segment complex queries into smaller, more manageable parts, offering the most relevant information and aiding in planning and decision-making.

12. Intelligent Workspaces: Integration of Powerful Data Analytics

AI-driven improvements in Google Workspace are revolutionizing business operations. Customers have reported a 68% increase in sales due to AI enhancements. The platform now offers prompt-based comparisons, auto-reply suggestions, and advanced data analysis features. Chip-based flagging in Google Chat can analyse and organise information across the workspace, streamlining communication and collaboration.

13. Smarter Android: Reimagining Phones with AI

AI integration in Android is transforming mobile user experiences. The introduction of AI-powered search circles and the Gemini assistant amplifies this shift. Users can now perform tasks like solving homework problems or identifying spam calls with greater ease and efficiency. This evolution ensures that phones can understand and interact with the world as intuitively as their users do with the power of AI.

Author - Sooryakanth Varma -https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/sooryakanth-varma-1a11b5213/