Google puts AI reinvention at center of I/O developer conference; shares rise (updated)
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) -- a company not known for keeping product development much of a secret -- confirmed a new Pixel tablet, foldable Pixel smartphone and budget-line smartphone at its I/O developer conference, but the keynote speech had a clear-eyed vision of the key challenge the company is addressing: artificial intelligence.
"We've been applying AI to make our products radically more helpful for a while," CEO Sundar Pichai said. "With generative AI, we are taking the next step. With a bold and responsible approach, we are reimagining all our core products, including search."
Updated 3:45 p.m.: Alphabet stock moved up sharply through the I/O keynote and heading into the close: (GOOG) +4.3%, (GOOGL) +4.4%.
AI features were used over 180B times in Google Workspace last year alone, he said, and AI is helping the company take next steps with features like "Help Me Write," which drafts entire emails (such as a customer service refund request) from a single prompt. Pichai also previewed "Immersive View" for Google Maps, a deep 3-D view of map routes, and "Magic Editor" for Google Photos, a more advanced tool to change photos after the fact.
He also announced PaLM 2, its newest large language model feeding 25 new products and features the company is announcing today. The model supports more than 100 languages and can write code, Pichai said. And Bard, its conversational chatbot, is "rapidly evolving" and now runs fully on PaLM 2, and will be open to all. (Bard has been at the center of the past few months' square-off with AI at Microsoft Bing (MSFT).)
The company's updates to its Android mobile operating system include an expansion of "Find My Device" to include items with tracking tags, as well as frequently misplaced earbuds. And WhatsApp (META) is bringing its first wristwatch app to Google's Wear OS, the company said.
On the phone front, the company got a jump on its usual summer announcement timeframe by unveiling the lower-priced Pixel 7a phone, now available starting at $499.
The company also showed off its Pixel Tablet in three colors, which it's bundling with a charging speaker dock for $499, shipping next month.
And Google confirmed its worst-kept secret, saying the Pixel Fold foldable smartphone was available for preorder at $1,799, available next month (and bundled with a free Pixel Watch).