Google introduced the company’s first foldable phone as it held its I/O developers conference Wednesday in Mountain View, Calif. In addition to the $1,799 phone, Google introduced its latest advances in artificial intelligence and dropped the waitlist for AI chatbot Bard. Photo courtesy of Google
May 10 (UPI) — Google introduced its latest advances in artificial intelligence during its I/O developers conference Wednesday, as the company dropped the waitlist for AI chatbot Bard and unveiled new Pixel devices.
The conference, which was held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif., was closely watched by tech leaders, investors and consumers alike as the search engine giant revealed where it is in the AI race compared to other tech companies such as Microsoft and Facebook.
Google revealed plans to bring AI chat features to its core search engine.
Google’s AI-powered chatbot will answer questions “you never thought Search could answer.” As the look and feel of Google Search changes, users will get an AI-generated response in addition to traditional results. The company said the feature will be limited initially to a small number of users as it launches first in the United States.
The company introduced its new large language model called PaLM 2, which is powering more than 25 new products, as well as additions to its Bard chat integrations into Google Search. New features for Gmail were also unveiled including “Help Me Write” and a new “Immersive View” tool for Google Maps.
Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai opened Wednesday’s keynote, saying Bard “is now running on PaLM 2, and we continue to evolve it with coding upgrades.”
Bard, the company’s own chatbox, which has been kept mostly under wraps and tried by only a small group of beta testers so far, saw its availability in English expand Wednesday.
“As we continue to make additional improvements and introduce new features, we want to get Bard into more people’s hands so they can try it out and share their feedback with us,” Google Vice President Sissie Hsiao announced in a blog post Wednesday.
“Today, we’re removing the waitlist and opening up Bard to over 180 countries and territories — with more coming soon,” Hsiao added.
Bard, which operates outside the search engine and can respond to questions in English, Japanese and Korean, will be expanded to 40 languages soon and incorporate images — such as Google Maps and Google Docs — into its responses. There will also be integrations with Spotify, Walmart, Redfin, UberEats and Tripadvisor, Hsiao revealed.
Google opened the conference with musician Dan Deacon, playing music with some of the company’s AI tools.
“This is a generative AI experiment featuring musician Dan Deacon and Google MusicLM, Phenaki and Bard AI tool,” Google said. “No ducks were harmed in the making of this pre-show.”
Deacon added: “I’m going to play some songs, and a lot of the content is going to be made using Phenaki, Bard and MusicLM.”
Google also used the conference to reveal the company’s first folding phone at $1,799. Google called it the thinnest foldable phone on the market, which boasts a 7.6-inch display when opened and is expected to bring some competition to Samsung’s foldable screens.
The Pixel Fold features a Tabletop Mode, which allows users to set up the camera on a table to take closer shots. And the foldable phone offers a Split View so users can use multiple apps, allowing it to function like a tablet. Preorders for the Pixel Fold opened Wednesday with shipments beginning next month.
Google unveiled its more affordable Android phone, the Pixel 7a, which takes design features from the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. The Pixel 7a replaces the Pixel 6a and will be powered by Google’s Tensor chipset. The phone, which will be paired with 8GB of RAM, costs $499.
Preorders for Google’s Pixel Tablet, which costs $499, also began Wednesday. The tablet comes with a charging dock that can also be used to display content. The tablet is intended to be used around the house to control thermostats and lights.
