Google’s AI strategy will set the tone for its annual developer conference in California

The event is taking place at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, just down the road from Google’s headquarters. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

Perhaps the biggest announcements at Google I/O will revolve around AI or artificial intelligence, as it has been the focus of the entire tech industry for the past few months. Pichai and Co. will demonstrate how AI powers every product Google currently offers and what’s coming in the future. Industry insiders expect Google’s deep investments in artificial intelligence to be showcased at its annual developer conference this week.

“AI will definitely be the key theme,” says Charlie Dai, VP and principal analyst at Forrester. “Google is very likely to debut product enhancements across software offerings powered by Generative AI features with Gemini at the core.”

Over the past few months, Google has been demonstrating its AI efforts to better compete with Microsoft and OpenAI, as the latter two companies continue to expand aggressively with AI offerings. Microsoft has become a leading player in generative AI – technology that produces convincing text, images, or audio from simple hand-typed prompts – thanks to its multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot. The Redmond giant made an early bet on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and quickly embedded its AI-powered CoPilot service into most of its main software products, from Windows, Edge, Office apps, to Bing, powering Microsoft’s ecosystem. Microsoft’s focus on AI made it the most valuable tech company in the world, ahead of Apple and Nvidia. Microsoft’s “Copilot everywhere” strategy seems to be working, and Google too is on the same path as it expands its AI-related efforts, albeit with a different mindset.

“Microsoft has been using its channel partners so effectively to educate about AI features available on Copilot to tech-savvy developers or individuals who use high-performance computing applications. Google’s strategy, on the other hand, relies on making its Pixel devices better compete with Apple through an ecosystem play. On Android, the company is using Gemini to demonstrate Gen AI features through collaboration with OEM partners,” says Sanyam Chaurasia, Senior Analyst at Canalys.

For Chaurasia, Google is in an advantageous position primarily because there is a huge community of Android developers, the AI stack that Google has is more flexible and much wider, and it’s easily accessible. Google offers those development solutions across hardware and software while also owning the cloud infrastructure. But the battleground involves large language models, or LLMs — complex algorithms that lie at the heart of artificial intelligence.

There are already signs that Google is going all-in on artificial intelligence. Despite some glitches that plagued Gemini during the rollout phase, the company has been experimenting with adding its ChatGPT competitor to more Google services while also ensuring the AI-powered products are safe and built to adhere to its AI principles.

Android 15, Google’s follow-up to Android 14, will become available on compatible phones and tablets as the year progresses. (Image credit: Google)

The spotlight of this year’s gathering is expected to shed light on how Google plans to bring Gemini to Android, the mobile operating system powering over 3 billion active devices.

“I’d certainly expect to see further announcements about Gemini support in Android, with more details on Gemini Nano 2,” said Andrew Cornwall, senior analyst, Forrester.

Google has already demonstrated a taste of AI using both on- and off-device AI on the Pixel 8 series alongside its partner, Samsung, which offers “Galaxy AI” on the Galaxy S24 series. AI features such as Circle to Search, Magic Editor, and Audio Magic Eraser show what is really possible on smartphones using artificial intelligence.

Expanding Gemini’s capabilities onto Android smartphones is a logical step in that direction. Google’s on-device AI could give smartphones new capabilities, from translating and summarising conversations to taking and editing photos with the power of generative AI algorithms. This could be possible if the algorithms are baked into the devices’ chips and the software that runs them, rather than accessed via the cloud.

“We have seen collaboration with Samsung using the Gemini model; we can expect further collaborations with other OEMs using the Gemini models at I/O this year,” Chaurasia said while anticipating.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if more smartphone makers, particularly Chinese OEMs, bring AI-infused features to their smartphones in the near future. Ahead of I/O, Google announced that it would bring a swath of AI features to a brand-new Pixel 8a. It’s a mid-range smartphone that uses Google’s Gemini Nano model to power two on-device AI features on the phone. The device is powered by Google’s own custom Tensor 3 chip, which is designed with machine learning algorithms in mind and capable of running the Gemini Nano AI system that powers AI features. This is a smaller version of its family of large language models, which comes under the umbrella name Gemini.

Chaurasia says Google’s strategy with Gemini on Android is simple. The company wants to bring the power of Gemini AI to more smartphones, expand access to AI features, get more partners onboard, and ensure that Gen AI features reach out to devices as early as possible, allowing users to become familiar with AI. However, it remains to be seen if Google will power the next version of its mobile operating system, Android 15, with Gemini natively. But that is less likely the case.

OnePlus and Oppo will bring Google’s AI to some of their phones later this year. (Image credit: Google)

“Previously, nobody used to care about a Samsung account, but now with Galaxy AI powering the new Galaxy S24 series, users need to sign up using a Samsung account to access certain AI features. The more users sign up for a Samsung account, the company adds more Samsung IDs. This strategy of differentiation has worked for Samsung, helping increase the uptake of Samsung’s native apps and features,” he said.

The differentiation factor is the reason why Google will take a route of collaborating with different phone makers and letting them license the technology, rather than natively adding the Gemini AI tech to Android.

Experts believe Google’s push to bring Gemini to Android may put the company at loggerheads with Apple, which is also exploring adding on-device AI features to the next iPhone. But the more advanced Google gets in AI, the more it benefits the tech company and helps bring more money. In fact, Google would only gain if it scales Gemini AI. Apple has reportedly held talks with Google to integrate its Gemini AI product into the iPhone. A generative AI deal between Google and Apple, if it happens, would only demonstrate Google’s win and its lead in the AI race. Similar discussions were also held between OpenAI and Apple.

Under Pichai, Google may be working harder to weave artificial intelligence into its products, but meeting investors’ expectations is challenging. On one hand, the competition from Microsoft, OpenAI, and smaller startups such as Perplexity and Anthropic is stronger than ever. On the other hand, there is pressure to roll out AI features at a breathtaking speed while also continuing to improve Large Language Models. However, the true struggle is who controls artificial intelligence and the tech’s future. Every big tech company is currently engaged in a “platform war,” and the one that can make AI mainstream could reap the benefits in years to come, just like how Google dominated the search business and Microsoft controlled the PC market.

Pichai has already signalled the extent to which Google is willing to go to be in the brewing AI arms race, despite regulators keeping an eye on its AI strategy. The company’s recent move of merging its Android and hardware divisions into a single unit under Rick Osterloh shows the company’s prioritization shift to Artificial Intelligence on every possible device, from your phone to your TV and everything else that runs Android.

However, investors continue to question Google on when it will start making money from its AI investments. More importantly, the piece of the puzzle is whether AI threatens its money-making advertising business. Microsoft doesn’t have any fear of losing out to competition because it is more focused on the enterprise market and doesn’t have many consumer-facing products. However, Google’s case is different from any other tech company that is committed to long-term AI plans.

If an AI chatbot starts to offer users a way to search the web and provide direct answers similar to how a search engine functions, it could make a product like Google Search less popular. This is why Google has been cautious in bringing AI to its search engine. Google’s search engine has remained free of charge, while ads shown to users bring in money and help the company to fund its other big projects. Google brought in $175bn in revenue from search and related ads last year. That’s how valuable the search business is to Google.

While Google has been experimenting with adding its Gemini AI to search and is making optional generative AI search available to some users for beta testing, it has been slow to add any features that overshadow how a traditional search engine works.

I/O is a software-focused event, aimed at developers. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)

Despite some raising concerns, Google’s grip on the search business is yet to be challenged, with Microsoft’s Bing only commanding 4.4 per cent of the global search market, but the threat is looming. OpenAI is reportedly developing a feature for ChatGPT that can search the web and cite sources in its results, and if that feature gets released, the product will be a direct competitor to Google. However, there is no guarantee that OpenAI succeed in giving tough competition to Google in the lucrative search business.

Google has not yet said whether it would bring an ad-free search experience in the future, but the company is willing to charge consumers for a beefed-up version of Gemini through a premium tier of its Google One subscription service. It also sells chargeable premium features for Enterprise and Business plans for the Google Workspace productivity suite, such as Gmail and Docs.

“While Microsoft’s AI advancements are noteworthy, Google’s search business remains strong. However, the evolving AI landscape and regulatory dynamics could shape their future competition,” said Dai.

Google’s I/O keynote starts at 10 am California time or 10:30 pm India Standard time, on Tuesday, May 14. I’ll be covering it live so check back to see up-to-date news and commentary from the event in our I/O live blog straight from Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

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