On May 11th, Caixin News Agency reported that since OpenAI released the "Wensheng Video" model Sora during this year's Spring Festival, there has been no exciting flower activity in the AI field for several months.
But it is not difficult to see from the schedules of major technology giants that the long dormant AI track is about to usher in a "mid year carnival" - OpenAI will hold a live event next Monday to demonstrate a series of "magical" updates to ChatGPT and GPT-4. Microsoft will hold a Build developer conference in a week, and after a brief break, Apple WWDC will be served on the dining table of Chinese investors along with the hot big meat dumplings.
Sandwiched between them is the veteran AI giant, the founder and catcher of this wave of AI, Google. After experiencing various pains over the past year, Google's management, such as Sandal Pichai and Jamie Hassabis, needs to prove to the world that as the only large technology enterprise in the AI field that can still compete with Microsoft, Google is still holding its ground.
AI, AI, or AI
As the core event of the annual developer conference, the I/O 2024 keynote speech will be held at 10am Pacific Time on May 14th (1am Beijing Time on May 15th).
At the Coastal Circular Theater near Google Mountain View headquarters, investors will hear updates on artificial intelligence, search engines, Android 15 systems, and how these new features will be presented on newly launched mobile devices.
What needs to be corrected for Google is that Pichai actually shouted the slogan of shifting from "mobile first" to "AI first" in his I/O speeches in 2016 and 2017, emphasizing "rethinking all products and applying machine learning". Even so, after the emergence of ChatGPT a year and a half ago, Google was still widely questioned as the lagging and catching up side.
After a whole year of hard work, Google has successively launched the Gemini 1.0 and 1.5 series models, among which the most powerful 1.5 Pro has shown the potential to surpass GPT in terms of context window length and multimodal ability. But to make the capital market recognize Google's "AI first" position, the company still needs to release a series of revolutionary and widely available products.
At last year's I/O conference, Google focused on introducing the chatbot Bard (later renamed Gemini) and integrating a range of artificial intelligence into various products and services, such as maps and photo editing tools developed in collaboration with Adobe.
It is obvious that at next week's conference, Google will urgently prove that its Gemini has surpassed OpenAI/Microsoft's GPT/Copilot, so we may see a new version of Gemini next week, as well as a deeper integration of the platform into various products and applications.
Google has previously stated that it will replace its mobile assistant with a Gemini based chatbot. It is currently unclear whether Google is planning to introduce such changes at this I/O. At least for now, Gemini's application and web performance on mobile devices is still lackluster, and to replace the long-standing Google Mobile Assistant, Gemini needs to make significant updates.
In terms of search engines, Google announced AI based Generative Search Experience (SGE) a year ago, and this year's focus will be whether Google believes that this service is mature enough to exit the Lab Preview program. If the era of search engines being able to directly provide answers officially arrives (instead of providing a bunch of links for users to click on themselves), this will be a profound change for both users and content publishers.
Meanwhile, Google's map application has been testing AI search to find destinations through dialogue. In terms of the application scenarios of maps, the demand for such functions is not so common.
Finally, there is also a possibility of Google's developer conference leaking Apple WWDC information in advance. According to the latest news, Apple may be close to collaborating with OpenAI to use external AI in the iOS system, while also negotiating with Google to introduce Gemini.
The core issue of this matter is how these external AI will be presented in the iOS system. The series of Android AI features launched by Google next week may hint at the content that Apple is brewing.
At present, in the Android system, the main use of AIGC is the Gemini Nano driven input method keyboard for automatic reply, SMS magic writing, summarization, and image editing. With the upgrading of chips and software, designing mobile operating systems based on artificial intelligence has also been put on the agenda. For example, what should the main screen, lock screen, and notification bar look like in the AI era? This is also the answer sheet that Google and Apple need to submit within the next month.
In addition to AI, the Android 15 currently in the developer preview stage also shows improvements such as satellite connectivity, camera control, and privacy sandbox.
Hardware side station
Perhaps different from a few years ago, Google is not planning to leave too much time for hardware devices this year.
After I/O launched the PixelFold foldable phone last year, this device may undergo a major upgrade this year, but it is expected to be released in the fall along with the latest Pixel9 phone. At the same time, in order to avoid news about new phone releases being buried in a pile of AI news, Google has officially announced the latest mid-range Pixel8a phone this week and will officially launch it on the day of the I/O conference.
Given that Google usually doesn't pay much attention to the confidentiality of new devices, there is still no news on this point, indicating that the company hopes to spend more time on AI related announcements. It's not hard to imagine that Google will spend a lot of time talking about how Pixel phones apply the latest Android features.
Finally, there may also be news related to virtual reality headsets at this year's I/O conference.
At last year's I/O conference, Google confirmed that it is developing an Android based XR headset operating system with Samsung. Meanwhile, after reportedly refusing to use Android XR last year, Meta has started pushing major manufacturers to install the Horizon OS system.
Finally, after the official keynote speech, Google will also hold a developer keynote speech on the same day, mainly disclosing the latest development tools. Many Wall Street analysts are also closely monitoring this meeting, with the main focus on whether the monetization path will become clearer and whether there will be other AI catalysts.