Google I/O

This year’s Google I/O was a revelation. Google has finally made some really tough strategic decisions, and we are watching the first stages of their success. I’m going to list what I think each product achieved

Veo 3

Google’s video generation model integrates video, ambient noise, soundtrack, dialogue. It can sing! In high definition!

The initial wow factor does wear off rather quickly:

• It’s still not long generations. Lots of people have shown seconds long clips

• The other pluses: high def, ambient noise, lip syncing etc. have been demonstrated by other startups before.. there is no clarity whether its all native single model or really a stitched together product

• It’s gated behind a $250 per month subscription.. so really they don’t want anyone to use it, they just want to showcase their research

This pattern of releasing signs of interesting advances but gating them such that few users would use them is then repeated across the rest of the portfolio.

However, Veo 3 does mean that Google now openly trains on Youtube content (that’s why its so good), so that resolves one major point of strategy that they were muddy on earlier. They’re doing it and accepting the legal risk from doing it.

Smart Personalization in Email

Your Gmail canned responses now sound like you.. but also the AI pulls in details from the rest of your Gmail, Calendar and Maps to contextualize responses.

This feature probably has the most immediate customer impact but will probably be missed by most.

What it means: Google reads your emails. And all your other data. Imagine your database cronjob having opinion about your love life. Yep there’s dozens of them watching you all the time now. I always wondered when Google with level with users. They’re still soft pedalling, but this is a pretty big product promise being broken here.

AI Mode

Google search has an AI Mode. Search in regular Google for “AI Mode“ and you can switch it on. AI Mode is Perplexity Web Search or ChatGPT Search at Google scale. It’s really good.

AI Mode is the Search that Google could deliver it if didn’t have an existing business that relied on confusing users into clicking on ads. It’s available to all users but you have to opt in.. meaning 99% of users will not, and only the potential traitors who’d use other services will really use it.

This resolves another of Google’s strategic questions, continuing to innovate on search without cannibalizing the ads cash cow.

The rest of the keynote had a bunch of early R&D vaporware products, but for me the above 3 represented a clear direction from the company to explore the future without sacrificing their dominant position.