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Google I/O 2024’s keynote was mainly focused on AI. It’s not surprising given that AI is all the rage these days. But it was also surprising that Google chose to spend the keynote focusing on its AI future rather than talk about other products. We were curious about Google’s AI plans for the future, but we left feeling a bit underwhelmed.
AI like OpenAI’s ChatGPT was actually kind of surprising and felt very magical. The ability to chat with an AI bot in natural language and have it do a lot of things that you would have to manually do yourself, like write articles, make suggestions, and summarize content, felt borderline sci-fi.
AI is being overhyped
Google’s AI announcements, on the other hand, felt kind of dull. Don’t get us wrong, we acknowledge that there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes. We’re not taking away from all that hard work and effort, but it just didn’t have the same magical feeling. If anything, a lot of the new AI features Google announced felt like a more “enhanced” version of existing apps and features.
As AI is the buzzword of the season, it’s understandable that many companies want to use it to market their products. But we think that this has resulted in the term being overused and maybe oversold.
For example, any new feature that seems remotely smart, like a camera being able to better detect subjects, suddenly has AI technology behind it. Or software that can better manage your phone’s battery is suddenly powered by AI. Like we said, it just feels like a more enhanced version of an existing feature rather than something revolutionary.
Some hits and misses
This isn’t to say Google had nothing exciting to show at I/O 2024. For example, its AI Overview feature seems like a great example of the technology. Being able to search for content and have it summarized for a quick overview feels magical. No more having to click through endless websites to find what you need seems like a huge plus.
Other features felt a little meh. The new “Ask Photos” feature seems like an expansion of a feature Google Photos previously had, where it could automatically put together interesting videos using your existing photos and videos.
Conclusion
Ultimately, at the end of the day a lot of the features we’re seeing still require a lot of manual control and input. To be fair, we’re still in the somewhat early stages of seeing consumer AI in action. It is possible that more powerful hardware and better software in the future could change things. But for now, the future Google envisions for its AI has left us feeling kind of underwhelmed.
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