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 disconnected Google's yearly developer league connected Tuesday wherever the tech elephantine is expected to uncover a flurry of artificial ‌intelligence upgrades for consumers and coders.

This year’s I/O league successful Mountain View, California - traditionally Google’s flagship lawsuit ‌for showcasing the cutting borderline of its consumer-facing products - volition beryllium the company's archetypal since past winter's large update to its Gemini AI ​model helped it regain crushed successful the AI race.

“I deliberation it's been an unthinkable year, each of the relentless shifting, the accelerated advances successful technology. It's been a play of hyper progress,” Pichai said.

Pichai besides said that its Gemini AI chatbot present has 900 cardinal monthly users, portion its AI Overviews diagnostic successful Search has 2.5 cardinal monthly users.

Google genitor Alphabet ‌recently came wrong striking region of ⁠Nvidia arsenic the world’s astir invaluable company. It whitethorn question to fortify its lasting connected Tuesday with a refreshed mentation of Gemini, positive caller products and features built with the ⁠model’s capabilities.

Google has pushed to crook its immense user scope into an borderline successful AI, connecting Gemini to personalized idiosyncratic information crossed its suite of products that includes Chrome, Gmail, and YouTube.

The institution is embedding generative AI into its accepted hunt motor ​and ​seeking to amass users connected its chatbot that is besides ​called Gemini and competes with ChatGPT.

Search was Alphabet’s ‌biggest gross operator successful 2025, erstwhile it reported $402.8 cardinal successful full revenue. The institution is ramping up spending connected AI infrastructure, expecting $180 cardinal to $190 cardinal successful superior expenditures this year.

Advertising revenue, including from hunt ads, has continued to burnish Google's maturation successful caller quarters, assuaging capitalist fears that AI could disrupt Google's products and soften its marketplace dominance.

AI rivals OpenAI and Anthropic person been gearing up for IPOs, focused connected capturing lucrative endeavor customers. Google is besides ‌expected to dedicate clip astatine the league to absorption connected businesses, ​particularly bundle developers who person been a superior root of endeavor ​AI revenue.

In 2025, the institution hired cardinal unit ​from fashionable AI codification procreation startup Windsurf successful a $2.4 cardinal woody to bolster its efforts ‌around coding adjunct Antigravity, which competes with Anthropic’s market-leading ​Claude Code bundle improvement tool.

Google ​is progressively positioning integer assistants it calls agents, which tin bash analyzable tasks without a prompt, arsenic the linchpin of its strategy to monetize AI. Pichai and different executives spoke astir this astatine a ​business-oriented unreality computing league past month.