Google I/O 2024: AI-powered search experience to Gemma 2 updates, here are the key highlights

Global tech behemoth Google unveiled a slew of features and updates at its annual conference on May 14, with the company's accelerating shift towards artificial intelligence (AI) emerging as the key highlight.

The Sundar Pichai-led Big Tech firm said it would be rolling out AI Overviews – a feature that will allow Google users to get summaries on their queries through AI-generated texts along with related web links for deeper insights.

AI Overviews will be launched for users in the United States as early as this week, whereas Google plans to roll it out for worldwide users in a phased manner.

Here are the other key announcements at Google I/O event:

• Gemma 2: The company announced the launch of Gemma 2, which is the advanced version of its state-of-the-art open models. "At 27 billion parameters, Gemma 2 delivers performance comparable to Llama 3 70B at less than half the size. This breakthrough efficiency sets a new standard in the open model landscape," it said in a post-event blog.

• LLM Comparator: Google said it is expanding its "Responsible Generative AI Toolkit" to help developers conduct more robust model evaluations by releasing the LLM Comparator in open source. The LLM Comparator is a new interactive and visual tool to perform effective side-by-side evaluations to assess the quality and safety of model' responses.

• Detecting spam calls: Google said it will be using Gemini Nano, a part of its generative AI toolkit, to detect spam calls and warn users against receiving them. The feature could be rolled out later this year, with the launch of Android 15, it said.

• YouTube quizzes: A new feature would be rolled out on YouTube, the video-streaming platform of Google, that will make quizzes more interactive. Using AI technology, the company will allow those viewing educational videos live to virtually raise their hands and answer questions. The feature will also allow viewers to seek explanations for their queries.

• Checks: Google announced the general availability of "Checks", its AI-powered compliance platform for application developers. Now all Android and iOS developers can access automated privacy compliance reports that "give you actionable insights into your data collection and sharing practices, as well as help ensure that you stay compliant with data privacy requirements over time", it said.