Google’s I/O 2023 keynote wrapped up. Mostly a snooze if you aren’t writing code.
The big news? Gemini 1.5 Flash. An incremental step, but they keep saying the word agentic until it starts to sound like a verb. “Building a new agentic era.” One executive on stage made it sound like we were launching into orbit. In reality? Just better automation. Emails. Dinner reservations. Planning trips.
Google wants Gemini to do the heavy lifting now. Autonomously. Within limits. Obviously.
Hardware stayed quiet. The star of the show is a pair of smart glasses called “Audio Glasses.”
Google’s answer to the Meta Ray-Bans. But cooler? Collaborations with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster aim for a subtler look. The goal: camera glasses that don’t scream “I AM A SPY.” Or just… glasses that don’t look like tech.
Uncharacteristically uneventful? Yes. Traditional for I/O? Also yes. Still, plenty happened. Here is the rundown.
Gemini 1.5 and Spark
Gemini 1.5 Flash launched today. Available in the Gemini app right now. Beats most frontier models in benchmarks. And token efficiency? Also superior to the 1.0 Pro.
Flagship 1.5 Pro? Wait for June.
Then there is Gemini Spark. The splashiest thing announced. Possibly the most ambitious Google has done in a while.
A cloud-based AI agent. Runs continuously. In the background.
Powered by 1.5 Flash and built inside Antigravity, their coding IDE. Connects to Gmail, Docs, Uber, Zillow… over 30 apps. Rolling out to US AI Ultra subscribers next week.
Worried it will blow your credit card? Me too. So did they. Enter AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol). It caps spending. Limits shops. You still approve transactions. Like giving a teenager a debit card with parental controls. Guardrails loosen as trust builds. Ideally.
Cheaper Tiers. Changed Limits.
Subscriptions got cheaper. Good news.
AI Ultra? $99.99 a month now. Down from $250. Aims for developers and power users. Gets you 5x Pro usage, Antigravity priority, 20TB storage, and YouTube Premium.
The old $250 tier dropped to $200. Full lineup: Plus ($7.99, Pro ($19.96), Ultra (starts at $99.90).
Per-prompt counting? Dead. Replaced by “compute units.” Text is cheap. Complex video costs more.
Limits refresh every five hours. Not daily. Hit the cap? Google auto-escalates to a lighter model. No hard stop. No cutting you off completely. A mercy move? Maybe.
Gmail and Search
Gmail Live. Finally. Ask your inbox questions out loud.
Flight gate number? School schedule? It pulls the answer from emails. Works for AI Pro and Ultra this summer. Workspace preview also arriving.
AI Inbox? Expanding. Personalized replies, instant doc access, one-click task management. Starts today for Pro and Plus too. VP Blake Barnes insisted: user data isn’t training fuel. You get sourcing citations. Show you can trace the answer back.
Search got a shake-up. First big redesign in 25 years.
The search box now supports images, videos, even Chrome tabs. “Stop Googling,” the pitch goes. Start talking.
Search Agents run in the background 24/7. Tracking sneakers? Apartment listings? They scan socials and news for you. Use case: genuinely useful. Catch? Locked behind Pro/Ultra walls. Summer launch.
Agents can call businesses. Yes. Actual phone calls. For everyone this summer. Shopping gets live prices and direct links.
Personal Intelligence expands. Connects Gmail, Photos, Calendar context into Search. Opt-in, of course. Data control remains with the user. Because they expect us to worry.
Antigravity coding tools? Now in Search too. No-code fitness trackers or wedding dashboards. For the rest of us.
Hardware: The Glasses
Google and Samsung revealed Android XR glasses. No name. No price yet. Just two styles: one with Gentle Monster, one Warby Parker.
Called Audio Glasses to distance themselves from “tech goggles.” Same function as Ray-Bans Meta, though: voice commands, hands-free, Gemini baked in.
Samsung made the hardware. Google made the soul. Coming fall.
Shopping, Docs, and SynthID
Google Shopping got Universal Cart.
One cart. Across Amazon, Target, etc. Tracks price drops. Restock alerts. Hits Google Search and Gemini this summer.
Underneath it all: Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Allows AI agents to finish purchases and bookings. Amazon, Walmart, Meta… all integrated. Shows fees and rewards upfront. Before you buy. Transparency is the brand right now.
Docs Live is wild.
Dump your brain-dump text into Gemini. It structures it live. Edit via chat. Cut this, add that. Updates happen instantly. No formatting fights. Just conversation.
SynthID? Bigger lift this year.
OpenAI, Kakao, ElevenLabs adopted it. Watermarking becomes an industry standard? Rare cross-company alignment.
Now in Chrome. Right-click an image. Check if it’s AI. Sundar Pichai pushed this hard.
Omni and YouTube
Gemini Omni is a “world model.”
Multimodal. Text, audio, video, image… it handles all input/output. Flash version out now for Plus, Pro, Ultra. Free roll-out for Shorts later.
DeepMind boss Demis Hassabis calls it a “meaningful step” toward AGI. Big words.
Demographics showcase: video editing by chat. Change the angle. Swap backgrounds.
Avatar feature? Creates your digital twin. Still in testing. All Omni video gets watermarked with SynthID. Obviously.
YouTube stayed relatively quiet. Two updates, though.
Shorts Remix gets Omni. Advanced AI prompts. Automatic attribution. Likeness detection? Now for everyone 18+. Prevents face-swap creep.
Ask YouTube? In search.
Ask a complex question. Get video results directly in search. Tutorials. “How to” stuff. Better than text? Sometimes. Rolling out summer. US first.
It wraps there. Not flashy. But functional. The era of doing things for us begins. Even if we have to pay for the privilege.
