Google kicks off I/O conference with AI upgrades for coders, consumers

By Kenrick Cai

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, May 19 (Reuters) - Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off Google's annual developer conference on Tuesday where the tech giant revealed a flurry of artificial intelligence upgrades for consumers and coders.

This year’s I/O conference in Mountain View, California - traditionally Google’s ‌flagship event for showcasing the cutting edge of its consumer-facing products - is the company's first since last winter's major update to its Gemini ‌AI model helped it regain ground in the AI race.

“I think it's been an incredible year, all of the relentless shifting, the rapid advances in technology. It's been a period of hyper ​progress,” Pichai said.

The Alphabet chief began the keynote presentation by revealing new products including Docs Live, which can help a user draft a document through a real-time voice conversation, and Ask YouTube, a conversational search interface.

Pichai also said that Google's Gemini AI chatbot now has 900 million monthly users - more than doubling in a year. Its AI Overviews feature in Search now has 2.5 billion monthly users, while AI Mode has about 1 billion, he added.

“When people use our AI-powered features in search, they ‌use search more,” Pichai said.

Google parent Alphabet recently came ⁠within striking distance of Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company. It is looking to fortify its standing on Tuesday with a refreshed version of Gemini, plus new products and features built with the model’s capabilities.

GOOGLE LAUNCHES GEMINI OMNI VIDEO TOOL

The ⁠company also unveiled Gemini Omni, a new video model that Google executives sought to cast as a successor to the Nano Banana image generator, which attracted 13 million first-time users in just four days in September in what has marked one of Google’s few viral AI moments. Omni can generate videos with customizable audio and text.

Demis Hassabis, who ​runs ​Google’s DeepMind AI lab, said Gemini Omni represented the next step in Google’s vision to ​create a “world model,” which can simulate the physical nature of ‌the world.

“Starting with video, but over time, Omni will be able to generate any output from any input,” Hassabis said.

Google has pushed to turn its vast consumer reach into an edge in AI, connecting Gemini to personalized user data across its suite of products that includes Chrome, Gmail, and YouTube.

The company is embedding generative AI into its traditional search engine and seeking to amass users on its chatbot that is also called Gemini and competes with ChatGPT.

Search was Alphabet’s biggest revenue driver in 2025, when it reported $402.8 billion in total revenue. The company is ramping up spending on AI infrastructure, expecting $180 billion to $190 billion in capital expenditures ‌this year.