Sundar Pichai says Google I/O is their version of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour with ‘fewer costume changes’
Google I/O 2024: Sundar Pichai introduced a new version of Google's search engine that will show responses crafted by AI.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai likened the Google annual I/O developer event to the tech giant's version of pop icon Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, "but with fewer costume changes". The most significant announcement from Tuesday's event Google is on the new version of Google's search engine that will show responses written by artificial intelligence (AI) instead of website links.
“For those of you who haven't seen I/O before, it's basically Google's version of the Eras Tour, but with fewer costume changes. At Google though, we are fully in our Gemini era,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in his welcome address at the Google I/O event in Mountain View, California.
The Indian-origin CEO was comparing the mammoth event to Taylor Swift's ongoing mega global tour named Eras Tour, which has 152 shows across five continents.
The new Google Search feature, called AI Overviews, will be rolled out in the United States this week and will be launched in other countries in the coming months. The feature is aided by Google's AI chatbot Gemini.
“We’ve been testing this experience outside of Labs. And we’re encouraged to see not only an increase in Search usage, but also an increase in user satisfaction,” Pichai said.
AI Overviews on Google Search, however, has the potential to be a threat to the flow of money-making internet traffic and websites dependent on users from Google Search.
"This is a moment of growth and opportunity," Pichai told reporters.
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Another new announcement by Google is an addition to the Gemini 1.5 AI models known as Flash that is faster and cheaper to run; a prototype called Project Astra, which can talk to users about anything captured on their smartphone camera in real time; and search results categorised under AI-generated headlines.
The Google I/O 2024 event comes a day after Sam Altman's OpenAI announced the launch of , GPT-4o, that will be free to all users. GPT-4o has a human-like voice that responds to written or visual prompts.
