Google I/O Conference: The Biggest Announcements

At its annual I/O conference, Google announced its latest AI developments. Here’s a recap of the biggest news Google shared at its developer conference.

• A new search experience. Google will incorporate AI-generated summaries in some search queries. It is also launching “Perspectives,” a feature that collects personal experiences from various sources and translates them into a collection of images, short videos, and written content.
• Magic Editor. This AI-powered photo editing tool within the Google Photos app can complete complex edits like repositioning objects, filling in gaps, as well as more drastic alterations in the background and foreground of photos.
• Magic Compose. Google announced another feature within the Magic series aimed to help users manipulate text in a desired way. According to the demo, Magic Compose can rewrite any message in a different tone or style, as well as provide prompts for your responses.
• Immersive View for Google Maps. The “Immersive View for Routes” feature will initially roll out in 15 cities in the following months. In addition to providing directions, it will give users a multidimensional view of traffic simulations, parking, bike lanes, and more.
• PaLM2. Its newest language model (LLM), PaLM 2, is expected to power its chatbot Bard and act as a base for many of the new AI features it’s about to release.
• A visual experience with Bard. Thanks to Google’s partnership with Adobe, its AI chatbot Bard is getting art generation capabilities and its responses will now also feature images. Google is removing the chatbot’s waitlist and expanding its availability across 180 countries in English, with Korean and Japanese to follow soon.
• AI-generated music. MusicLM, an experimental AI tool that can make music out of text prompts, is now available within the AI Test Kitchen app on both Android and iOS. Users can request “soulful jazz for a dinner party” or “an industrial techno sound that is hypnotic,” specify instruments like “classical” or “electronic,” or pick a mood, vibe, or emotion.

Other exciting features include Sidekick, a tool designed to assist users in creating better prompts, AI code generation tool Codey, a new text-to-image model Imagen, and more features that will power its products and devices.

Almost all Microsoft business apps received an AI boost since the launch of ChatGPT, and Google is not lagging. The company’s Workspace suite is getting some AI magic, including automatic table generation in Sheets and image generation in Meet and Slides.