It’s all about AI again at Google I/O 2024

Google is gearing up to host its annual developer conference, Google I/O, next week, and it goes without saying that the conference will be all about artificial intelligence. The company did not hide it. Since last year’s I/O conference, the company unveiled Gemini, its new, more powerful model designed to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and has been busy testing new features for search, Google Maps and Android. We expect to hear a lot about these things this year.

Google will also likely focus on how the company plans to turn your smartphone into an AI-powered tool. This means more productive AI capabilities for Google apps. AI functions have been worked on that help, for example, with eating and shopping or finding electric car chargers on Google Maps. Google is also testing a feature that uses artificial intelligence to call a business and wait until someone is actually available to talk.

Some of this could be bad news for devices like the Rabbit R1 and the Human AI Pin, which have recently hit the market and are struggling to justify their existence. The only advantage they might have at the moment is that it’s difficult (though not impossible) to use smartphones as AI wearables.