by MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google (GOOG, GOOGL) is in the middle of a full-blown AI evolution. On Tuesday, the company announced a flurry of AI products and services during its I/O developer conference in a bid to reposition itself as the world’s AI software leader.
“We are fully in our Gemini era,” CEO Sundar Pichai said during his keynote, referring to the company’s latest Gemini AI models, while noting that AI is still “in the early days of the AI platform transition. “
For years, Google was considered Silicon Valley’s AI powerhouse. But OpenAI and Microsoft ( MSFT ) threw the company off course, entering into a multi-year, multi-year partnership in 2023 in which Microsoft integrated OpenAI’s most advanced models into its productivity, search and cloud products.
All of this helped crown Microsoft the world’s most valuable company earlier this year.
It wasn’t easy for Google to pull back. He started a ChatGPT competitor called Bard which was not expected much at first. And most recently, it blocked the rollout of its AI-powered image generator, a tool the company admitted “wasn’t working the way we intended.”
Stealing back the AI throne begins with Google reinventing its most important product: Search. Now—or soon, as it rolls out over time—at the top of the screen, you’ll find an AI-powered generation area called AI Overview that offers a summary of answers to questions as well as links to the sources.
It’s a big event for Google and could affect everything from the company’s advertisers, its main source of revenue, to websites that rely on the company for search traffic, such as travel platforms and media organizations.
While the Search changes are easily the biggest updates to Google’s public products, the consequential announcements weren’t the only thing on show. Google also showed off a new prototype AI-powered assistant called Project Astra.
During a pre-recorded stage demo, the platform, which watches content streamed through a smartphone camera, was able to recognize objects, solve programming problems, and more.
Unlike Apple’s (AAPL) Google Assistant and Siri digital assistants, Project Astra offers a more creative conversational tone that sounds more human. He is able to understand even when you interrupt him, stopping to listen without going mad. Not a good person!
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who was touring the I/O show grounds, said that the technology behind Project Astra would be helpful for the company’s canceled Google Glass, adding that the headset was 10 years ahead of the time.
But Google’s announcement came a day after OpenAI debuted its own GPT-4o model, which, based on pre-recorded and live-streamed demonstrations, is capable of many of the same tasks as Project Astra. In addition, OpenAI is making parts of its GPT-4o model available for free to users, while Google says it will charge for access to Project Astra.
Google also unveiled AI updates to its Workspace productivity suite, including bringing Gemini to the Gmail mobile app. This feature allows users to quickly summarize emails and write contextual responses based on messages.
Android, Google’s mobile operating system, has received its share of AI-generated improvements, including scam call detection and the ability to add AI-generated images and more to text messages and Gmail.
So far, that puts Google well ahead of Apple, which has yet to introduce AI generation features into its iOS operating system for the iPhone. But that’s expected to change for the most part when the company hosts its annual WWDC event in June.
Even if Apple starts a new generation of AI offers, it could still be a help to Google, since, according to Bloomberg, Apple is working to use Google’s Gemini to power the iPhone’s AI capabilities. But Apple is also in talks with OpenAI. Folks, we have baked AI.
So far, Google seems to be back on top. While GPT-4o has dampened some of the excitement surrounding Project Astra, Google Search’s AI Overview will expose far more people to its AI generation technologies than Microsoft or Apple when the latter shows its hand.
But with Microsoft preparing to host its Build developer conference next week, Google’s lead may be short-lived.
Email Daniel Howley at dowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Daniel Howley.
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