4 Things We Learned From Google’s I/O Conference

Google’s annual IO conference took place last month and, since we’re a conscientious bunch who are well aware of hectic schedules, we’ve compiled a lovely Google IO review just for you.

1. Artificial Intelligence Takes Centre Stage

A.I. News — Week of May 22nd – Becoming Human https://t.co/7dORicVGLy #googleio2017 #googleio pic.twitter.com/67EFShKQh5

— Becoming Human (@BecomingHumanAI) 8 June 2017

AI was a focal point of this year’s conference, with CEO Sundari Pichai making it the central subject of his keynote speech.

With Google looking to re-architect the company to be more AI focused, it appears as though the search engine will venture further than their current undertakings which already include Google Photos and Google Drive.

Alongside this, the launch of its new machine learning research project was announced.

AutoML aims to improve its current machine learning systems to the point where it can create its own.

As it stands, building the models is a time consuming undertaking that is pretty darn expensive too (not that that’s much of an issue for $100bn company mind).

If machine learning could be improved to the point where it basically builds itself, it would mean significantly faster development times, alongside a much larger scope for future projects.

A bit similar to a self-cleaning oven really.

2. Google Assistant Owns iPhone

Starting today, we’re bringing the #GoogleAssistant to iPhones. Whether at home or on the go, your Assistant is here to help. #io17 pic.twitter.com/a6T20HwnU9

— Google (@Google) 17 May 2017

Not owns in the monetary sense, rather owns in the young, cool hip sense of the word (as in ‘destroys the competition’ if you’re still not sure).

In short, Google Assistant has wiped the floor (ish) with Apple’s Siri due to the huge steps it’s made in the world of machine learning.

And it’s partly due to these leaps in AI that Google Assistant will now be available on iPhone.

Cementing itself as an intrinsic part of Apple’s future iOS updates, Google will hope to see an increase in voice related searches from users of all devices.

Fingers crossed it’ll start to understand my thick Welsh accent too.

3. Some Interesting Infrastructure Developments

#googleio2017 now shifts focus from mobile to AI. TensorFlow and TPUs show great promise and scale. https://t.co/xKxRZ9mAJ7

— John Kelleher (@johnkelleher) 1 June 2017

Last year, Google’s Tension Processing Unit (TPU) promised to be a game a changer, and this year, they’ve improved it once again.

The second generation TPU looks to speed up machine learning, how fast you ask? 180 teraflops, that’s how fast.

Side note: If, like me, you weren’t sure how fast that is, I can honestly tell you that it is very fast.

This development to the core of Google’s AI dreams will bring them closer to their goal of creating machine learning programmes that build themselves.

All pretty impressive if you ask me.

4. Bringing the Job Market to the 21st Century

Google Lens, Google for Jobs, Google.ai, Android 0? @HubSpot reveals all about #GoogleIO! https://t.co/b6w9DpGjvx #GoogleIo2017

— MO (Markets Online) (@Markets_Online) 29 May 2017

And finally, we have Google’s newest AI application which will be launching ASAP.

Google for Jobs looks to use artificial intelligence to predict what users will be searching for in the marketplace, and link them with employers who match their specific skill set.

With many platforms hoping to perfectly predict the searching habits of us humans, it appears as though Google is attempting to narrow the field slightly and branch out into HR along the way.

Hopefully I won’t be needing it anytime soon, but it’s always good to know it’s there.