Google unveils new gen. AI features, enters its 'Gemini era'

During the 2024 Google I/O keynote address, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai (GOOG, GOOGL) unveiled a new slate of generative AI features, such as AI-integrated search. Google claims that these new products are a part of its “Gemini era.”

Yahoo Finance Tech Editor Dan Howley joins Market Domination live from the Google I/O conference to discuss Google's latest developments and competition with OpenAI.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Market Domination.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video transcript

Google parent alphabet, stepping up its game in the generative A I battle across its businesses.

Dan Halley is at the Google IO Developers conference in California.

More.

Dan.

Yeah, Josh, we're here at the shoreline amphitheater Sundar Kai took the stage here to kind of unveil everything that Google is doing when it comes to A I and I basically can say that it's everything I think the biggest announcement here though was the fact that they're bringing generative A I into search.

Now they've been playing with this a little bit on the back end.

They have a feature called Search lab that allows you to try these kinds of features out.

I've been using it for a while.

It is generally helpful, but now they're rolling out to everyone in the US and globally.

I think they said they'll have about a billion people using this.

It really is a fundamental change to how Google search works.

It's its biggest, most lucrative product.

So it's going to be a big risk if it does pay off though, it could put them further ahead of anyone else in the category.

Yes, Microsoft has been.

Yes, they were trying to cut into their market share.

No, they have not.

We also know that open a May or may not be working on some kind of search engine option.

It's still up in the air at this point.

So for now, Google is really showing off that it's still the king of search and it's building on that as well.

And then beyond that, there are a few updates to its workspaces app that would allow you to do things like have a meeting recorded.

And then if you're not there, you can get a summary of it, which is I think something that everybody wants and then to Android getting a number of generative A I features, uh talk about uh generating images, a spam kind of feature where if you get a phone call and if someone trying to get you to, I don't know, change your bank account number, the ja I will be able to listen to that and then tell you it's spam to hang up and just, you know, so you're aware that's not going up to the cloud, it's going to stay on device.

So Google says that they're not going to be listening in on your conversations.

Um Dan II, I was telling the team, I think I saw fish at the shoreline amphitheater back in the probably the nineties.

I didn't know that's where the event was happening.

Um When it comes to this uh new assistant, the digital assistant that uh that Google is talking about here, there's also a lot of competition on that front.

I mean, from what you've seen today because you said it remains to be seen whether Google is gonna win or one of the others is gonna win and when it comes to search and some of this other stuff, I mean, how impressed with the, with the technology that you saw today?

Yeah, I mean, uh, you're referring to the, the Gemini Live, which is basically uh GP T 40 They're essentially doing the same thing and you got to figure that open A I knew about that.

So they were like, well, we're just going to one of you guys by coming out the day before and that's exactly what happened.

So, you know, if you looked at uh one demo for, for G BT 40 And then you looked at what they're doing with GE and I live.

It's, it's still a lot of shame that said it's incredibly impressive what they're able to do with this where, you know, you have your camera and you're basically talking to an assistant, it's able to see what's going on around you.

And one of them, a woman was just kind of panning around her office asking questions about the office here and there.

Uh She had moved the camera over her glasses, never mentioned it to the TV assistant.

And then later on in the demo said, where are my glasses and it was able to say, oh, it was by the Apple on your desk.

And sure enough, that's where it was.

So it's intelligent.

It's got this contextualization that it's able to do.

And I, I do think more users are going to be jumping to a Google product first.

But with chat GP T Open A really proved there but a Marsh, a huge audience of people who are interested in this new cutting edge tech.

So they may have an advantage there.

I think really it's going to come down to between open A I and Google Microsoft.

Yes.

Uses Open A I.

Yes, they have their copilots everywhere.

But when it comes to something along the lines of search, it's still going to be Google and then open a potential threat, I think more so than Microsoft and Bing Dan.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.