Google made literally 100 announcements at I/O this week, a clear sign that the tech giant intends to dominate every aspect of AI, from its overhaul of Search to its latest AI models and wearables tech.
The event was packed and, at times, felt electrifying. Google showed impressive stats about how its AI has taken off. It had plenty of far-out goals, too, like building a universal AI assistant and extended reality glasses that give directions in real time.
I/O also showcased Google's vulnerabilities. Some releases clearly overlapped, while arch-rival OpenAI upstaged Google on Wednesday with a big announcement of its own.
With the conference now over, here are six main takeaways.
Google wants a 'total overhaul' of Search
The biggest change touted at I/O was AI Mode — what CEO Sundar Pichai called a "total overhaul" of Google's most iconic feature. In AI Mode, users will have a far more conversational Search experience, asking Google questions directly about what they're looking for.
That's a marked change from the traditional experience of going through a long list of links to find the right answer, which feels more clunky than ever in an age of AI chatbots.
At the same time, AI features like these could cannibalize Google Search and threaten the tech giant's main cash cow, Google Ads. Google risks not figuring out how to heavily monetize these AI tools. That being said, it's already testing ads in AI Mode.
Gemini everywhere
Google's AI model family, Gemini, took center stage at I/O. Google announced that it will integrate Gemini into Chrome, allowing users to chat with its latest AI models while they browse. (The feature rolls out to subscribers this summer.) It's a shot across the bow to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which already has a popular Chrome extension.
I/O also announced an array of updates to its Gemini app, which recently passed 400 million monthly active users — an impressive figure, though still behind ChatGPT. With an update called Personal Context, Gemini app users can get tailored responses based on personal data from Google services, like asking its AI to find a long-lost email.
It's all part of a long-term plan to build a universal AI assistant: what Google calls Project Astra. While it's still unfinished, that plan feels more fleshed out now than when Business Insider tested Astra a year ago.
Soaring AI traction
New AI features are undeniably cool, though Google's AI traction garnered some of the biggest reactions at Pichai's keynote speech on Tuesday.
Onstage, Pichai boasted that the number of tokens generated by Google across all its platforms a month had exploded 50 times to over 480 trillion since last year.
The crowd gasped—it was a big moment. Last year's I/O felt like a giant teaser for coming AI features, with plenty of promise but little to show for it. This year felt different.
Sergey Brin goes founder mode
There was no greater manifestation of Google tripling down on AI than cofounder Sergey Brin crashing a fireside chat with DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. That was after Brin wandered around a pavilion trying on a pair of Google's XR glasses.
At the chat, Brin said he goes into the office "pretty much every day now" to work on AI. He also said that retired computer scientists should get back to work to take advantage of the current environment.
Brin has been back at Google since 2023 as the search giant races against AI rivals, and it's obvious he's in "founder mode" — something quite rare at a mature company.
Google's smart glasses are here — sort of
Google let BI briefly try on its prototype Android XR glasses, which have Gemini's AI features and allow users to ask questions. While the tech shows promise, it's still early days. Google staffers asked the throngs of I/O attendees lining up for demos not to ask about price, availability, or battery life.
"We just don't know!" they said.
The prototype glasses feel impressively lightweight — almost too much so, to the point that they felt like they might fall off our faces. The display sits only on the right lens and is practically invisible unless viewed at just the right angle under the right light. It's full-color, but it's small and subtle enough that you might miss the display entirely.
We weren't allowed to view Google Maps or Photos in the glasses like Google showed off in its keynote. Instead, we put on the glasses and walked around a room filled with artwork on the walls and travel catalogs on a table that we could ask Gemini questions about.
While Gemini correctly identified the artwork, it couldn't answer a basic travel query when we looked at the travel catalogs: "What is the cheapest flight to New York next month?" And because the display is only on one side, focusing on it made us feel a bit cross-eyed.
The version we saw isn't the final design. It's missing the coming Warby Parker and Gentle Monster flair, though we did see glimmers of something promising here.
Throwing everything against the wall may or may not work
Google's announcements are undeniably impressive, though some of them felt repetitive. It's hard to understand the difference between Search Live and Gemini Live, for example. Both of them involve chatting with your phone about what it sees through its camera.
Google's strategy of launching literally 100 different things at once could work for the company. It could also signal a lack of focus.
BI was at an I/O panel when the news broke that OpenAI was buying former Apple design chief Jony Ive's hardware startup. Seeing OpenAI upstage Google like that felt a little ominous.
The Google panel BI attended was quite dry and technical, with terms like AI-powered "tool calling" mentioned several times. The contrast with OpenAI's buzzy announcement couldn't be clearer. We even saw several attendees check their phones when the news came out.
Google does have massive advantages in scale and distribution, thanks to Android and Chrome.
Still, it's possible that in the long term, something like an AI-native device that ditches Google's ecosystem altogether eventually takes over.
Investors got a taste of that risk last month, when the stock of Google's parent company, Alphabet, briefly tanked after Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue said search volume was shrinking due to AI.
