Tuesday marked the start of Google I/O, the company’s yearly developer conference. Shockingly, the firm chose not to reveal Android 15 features at the keynote event, but its leaders did reveal several notable new capabilities that would be available on Android handsets in the upcoming months. The company’s next significant operating upgrade for smartphones is anticipated to release in the second half of 2024, which coincides with these announcements. As anticipated, Google is preparing to release additional AI-powered features, continuing the direction it started with Android 14.
During the Google I/O keynote, Google’s vice president of engineering, Dave Burke, unveiled new AI-powered capabilities that would be available on Android handsets in the upcoming months. One of the most striking features unveiled is an enhancement to Circle to Search, the company’s visual search function that is presently limited to a few Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones, enabling kids to request assistance with their assignments. Users will be able to answer “problems involving symbolic formulas, diagrams, graphs, and more” by circling a prompt using Google’s LearnLM technology. This feature is anticipated to be released later this year.
Upgrades are also being made to the company’s AI model, Gemini, which operates on Android handsets. The business claims that while AI-generated photos can be rapidly uploaded to Gmail and Messages, Gemini for Android will soon be able to deliver information on YouTube films. According to the business, customers will be able to utilize Gemini Advanced’s new “Ask this PDF” feature to retrieve answers from PDF documents without having to sift through several pages.
Support for Gemini Nano with Multimodality, the company’s most recent model for on-device AI processing, will also be available for Google Pixel devices. Pixel phones will be able to interpret contextual data including as images, sounds, and spoken words in addition to text input.
The dialer, one of Google’s most basic smartphone apps, is also using AI. The business showcased its capacity to identify a possible scam call requesting a consumer to divulge financial information over the phone or transfer bank information in a demo during the Google I/O 2024 keynote event. It was demonstrated that the functionality protects user privacy on-device and operates in real-time. Google has not stated when consumers will be able to utilize these capabilities or which smartphones—likely Pixel models—will be supported.
The business claims that the multimodal characteristics of Gemini Nano would significantly improve Google TalkBack, the accessibility feature on Android handsets. By providing information on unlabeled photographs, the service will allow visually challenged users to obtain more in-depth information about images. According to Google, these new capabilities will operate on-device, so users will be able to benefit from the enhanced capability even while they are offline. The enhanced Google TalkBack service, which is powered by Gemini Nano with Multimodality, is expected to arrive “later this year,” although there is no official timetable yet.
