Search engine reinvention, photos and more: Big announcements emerge from Google I/O Conference
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KGO) -- Google announced its biggest overhaul to the search engine yet, most updates powered by artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence is developing and landing in consumers' hands at an extreme rate.
Search Engine Reinvention
One of the latest announcements, coming out of Google I/O, the tech giant's developers Tuesday conference is the reinvention of the search engine.
"They're really trying to change the search experience, from a text base to an image base, one that is intelligent, that gives you much more intuitive answers," said Mark Vena, Smarttech CEO.
Project Astra
One way, is the prototype called Project Astra, powered by technology called Gemini. Google said it's a universal AI agent that could be useful in everyday life.
One video shared by the tech giant showed a user pointing a phone's camera at a computer speaker, pointing to its components and asking the technology to define it.
More than just looking for definitions, the tech could even be used to help people fix things around the house.
"I'm going to take a video and ask Google why will this not stay in place," said Rose Yao with Google, pointing to a broken arm on a record player, "Google gives me an AI overview and some reasons this might be happening and steps I can take to troubleshoot."
MORE: OpenAI launches new AI model GPT-4o, a conversational digital personal assistant
Ask Photos
It's not the only way Google is reinventing, also on its way is Ask Photos.
"Ask Photos can also help you search your memories in a deeper way," explained Google CEO Sundar Pichai, "For example, you might be reminiscing about your daughter Lucia's early milestones. You can ask Photos 'When did Lucia learn to swim?' You can even follow up with something more complex. 'Show me how Lucia Swimming has progressed'. Here, Gemini goes beyond a simple search, recognizing different contexts. From doing laps in the pool, to snorkeling in the ocean, to detection dates on on swimming certificates, and photo packages all together in a summary."
It's not the only image based technology making headlines at Tuesday's conference.
RELATED: Pro-Palestinian protesters threaten to shut down Google developers conference in Mountain View
Imagen 3
Google says with a prompt users can ask something called Imagen 3 to create a photo.
Pictures like a man with a beard smiling at the camera, or a view from above with a look at a stunning river canyon.
Here's a look at some concerns
Still, with the advanced technology does come with some concerns.
"You really have to provide a level of confidence to Google, that they're going to protect that information from a privacy standpoint," Vena said. "So that may be giving some pause to a few folks, but they certainly have gone all in on how to reinvent search."
A look ahead
Some of the tech announced Tuesday will take some time to roll out, others we'll see very soon.
Google said starting this week millions of people will start to periodically see conversational summaries generated by AI, when typing a question in Google.
