Google I/O, Google’s biggest developer conference of the year, is nearly upon us.
Scheduled for May 20 to 21 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, I/O will showcase product announcements from across Google’s portfolio. Expect plenty of news relating to Android, Chrome, Google Search, YouTube, and — of course — Google’s AI-powered chatbot, Gemini.
Here’s what to expect.
Gemini and AI
AI is the tech du jour, and Google, like its rivals, has been investing heavily in it.
A shoo-in for I/O is a new addition (or several) to Google’s flagship Gemini family of AI models. Leaks over the past few weeks suggest that an updated Gemini Ultra model is on the way, Gemini Ultra being Google’s top-of-the-line Gemini offering.
With this upgraded Gemini Ultra may come a pricier Gemini subscription.
Google offers a single premium tier, Gemini Advanced ($20 per month), to unlock additional capabilities in its Gemini chatbot, which is powered by the company’s Gemini models. But Google may soon launch two new plans, Premium Plus and Premium Pro. It’s not yet clear what benefits might be attached and how these plans might be priced relative to Gemini Advanced.
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Google will almost certainly talk about Astra, its wide-ranging effort to build AI apps and “agents” for real-time, multimodal understanding. Also probably on the agenda is Project Mariner, Google’s AI “agents” that can navigate and take action across the web on a user’s behalf. Folks on X spotted references to “Computer Use” in the code for Google’s AI Studio developer platform, which could well pertain to Mariner.
Android 16
For the first time this year, Google is hosting a separate event dedicated to Android updates: The Android Show. It’ll take place on Tuesday, roughly a week ahead of I/O.
The latest version of Android, Android 16, will be the focus. Android 16 is expected to bring with it improved notifications and an entirely new design language, Material 3 Expressive. In a leaked blog post, Google describes Material 3 Expressive as a top-to-bottom overhaul, with greater responsiveness and “action elements” that pop.
Android 16 is mostly a quality-of-life update, judging by reports. It’ll introduce support for Auracast, which should make it easier to switch between Bluetooth devices. Also in tow are lock screen widgets and a range of new accessibility features.
Google may also spotlight capabilities in the latest versions of Android XR, its mixed reality operating system, and Wear OS, the company’s software for wearables.
Everything else
Going by the official I/O schedule, Google will have plenty to discuss following The Android Show and I/O keynote addresses.
The schedule lists sessions dedicated to Chrome and Google Cloud, Google Play (the Android app store), Android development tools, and Gemma, Google’s collection of “open” AI models.
Last year, Google unveiled a few AI-themed surprises at I/O, including a set of models fine-tuned for education applications called LearnLM. An upgrade to Google’s viral podcast-generating NotebookLM could be one such surprise. Leaked code reveals a “Video Overviews” tool that presumably would create video summaries, most likely leveraging Google’s Veo 2 video-generating model.