What The World Will Learn From Google I/O

Spring is here, and so is the time for the big developer updates. Today in the hopper, Google will be rolling out all of its best and brightest.

The highlight feature on tap will be the release of the Android P, which is expected to be more of an update to the full overhaul that came with Android Oreo last year. According to reports, this year’s edition will be more focused on interface design improvements.

The bigger news is expected to come from the update on artificial intelligence (AI) coming out of Google soon, as the firm has spent much of the last 18 months talking up the power of AI to guide the company’s future. Google Assistant, Google Translate and Google Lens (Google’s object recognition platform) are all expected to get airtime today, particularly the highly consumer-relevant stuff like Google Lens.

Hardware may also get a bit of a nod during this part of the presentation, specifically the Tensor Processing Unit chips, which are central to the company’s specially-designed AI training systems. The purpose, according to reports, is to help accelerate the learning curve for its proprietary neural networks.

Google Assistant is also expected to get some updates, though new features to be added seem up in the air going into the I/O developer conference. There may be some new integrations for the Google Home suite announced as well, though — again — specifics remain short. Most experts are fairly certain that no new hardware will be taking the stage since Alphabet tends to prefer holding off on those types of rollouts until its Fall Pixel event.

Hardware upgrades aside, analysts are expecting some news merely because of how hard Google has been pushing Home Products and third-party developer support going into I/O.