After ChatGPT, the chatbot from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI that has generated massive excitement among users with its humanlike responses, all eyes turned towards the Google Developers Conference, Google I/O 2023,
The event saw technology behemoth's CEO Sundar Pichai share various developments regarding the so-called generative AI to make Google's products even more useful for people, businesses and communities.
"Today, we have 15 products that each serve more than half a billion people and businesses. And six of those products serve over 2 billion users each. This gives us so many opportunities to deliver on our mission – to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," said Pichai.
Seven years into the journey as an AI-first company, he said they are at an exciting inflection point.
"We have an opportunity to make AI even more helpful for people, for businesses, for communities, for everyone," Pichai noted.
"It's a timeless mission that feels more relevant with each passing year. And looking ahead, making AI helpful for everyone is the most profound way we'll advance our mission. We're doing this in four important ways:
"First, by improving your knowledge and learning, and deepening your understanding of the world. Second, by boosting creativity and productivity, so you can express yourself and get things done. Third, by enabling developers and businesses to build their own transformative products and services. And finally, by building and deploying AI responsibly, so that everyone can benefit equally," Pichai explained.
At Google I/O, the company introduced PaLM 2, a next-generation language model.
PaLM 2 is a state-of-the-art language model with improved multilingual, reasoning and coding features. It builds on the company's fundamental research and latest infrastructure and is highly capable of a wide range of tasks and easy to deploy.
Google announced 25 new products and features powered by this technology.
The company also announced new ways to deliver the most useful information and knowledge to more people through Search, Maps and more at Google I/O.
The company also shared a look at its first steps in the new era of search, in which users will be able to first try these generative AI capabilities in Search Labs, an area to try out AI-powered search experiences.
"We're starting with an experiment in Search Labs, called SGE (Search Generative Experience), available on Chrome desktop and the Google App (Android and iOS) in the U.S. (English-only at launch), so we can incorporate feedback and continue to improve the experience over time," the company said.
One of the first experiments in Search Lab is the Search Generative Experience (SGE), which uses AI to provide an overview of information for exploring topics naturally. When SGE is released (initially in the U.S. only), Search Ads will continue to appear in dedicated ad spaces throughout the page.
Since the early days of Street View, AI has stitched together billions of panoramic images, so people can explore the world from their devices. At last year's I/O, Google introduced Immersive View, which uses AI to create a high-fidelity representation of a place, so people can experience them before they visit.
Now, the company is expanding that technology. With Immersive View for routes, users can see their whole trip in advance, whether they are walking, cycling or driving.
Immersive View for routes will begin to roll out over the summer and launch in 15 cities by the end of the year, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Florence, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Paris, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Tokyo and Venice.
The company also announced it was removing the waitlist and opening its ChatGPT competitor Bard, a chatbot with a persona that can hold human-like conversations, to over 180 countries and territories.
It also said Bard was now available in Japanese and Korean and was on track to support 40 languages soon. It is also introducing coding upgrades and export features. Google said it was working to connect Bard with other apps and services, including Adobe, Instacart, Wolfram and Khan Academy.
The company said its Magic Editor would enable users to make complex edits without professional-level editing skills.
In addition, it is also bringing new features to Google Workspace. In addition to "Help me write" in Docs and Gmail, Duet AI in Google Workspace provides tools to generate images from text descriptions in Slides and Meet, create custom plans in Sheets, and more.
