Google I/O: AI upgrades, subscriptions and smart glasses

Google parent Alphabet said on Tuesday it would make artificial intelligence tools available to more internet users and launch a $249.99 monthly subscription service for heavy AI users, the company's latest move to fend off competition from startups such as OpenAI.

At its annual I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California, Google released a series of technical demonstrations, including new smart glasses. Its statements have revealed a greater sense of urgency since the rise of generative AI has shaken the company's long-dominated field of organizing and retrieving internet information.

In recent months, Google has been more aggressive in catching up with its competitors - it was caught off guard when Microsoft-invested OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022.

On Tuesday, Google further outlined its AI vision for the search engine: users will be able to ask any query from simple questions to complex research, including analyzing images captured by mobile phone cameras and obtaining and purchasing event tickets. Google also said that its goal is to create personalized and proactive AI, such as calling businesses for users or instantly generating exercises to send to students.

CEO Sundar Pichai emphasized at the conference that Alphabet will promote AI development in a cost-controlled way: "We can always provide the best model at the most cost-effective price." He revealed that Google's AI assistant Gemini application currently has more than 400 million monthly active users.

In an important update, Google announced that users across the United States can now switch their searches to "AI mode." Since the feature was opened as a beta version in March, it can replace traditional web page results with computer-generated answers to deal with complex problems.

Google also launched the "AI Ultra Plan", which costs $249.99 per month. Users can enjoy higher AI usage quotas and experience experimental tools in advance, such as the browser extension tool "Project Mariner" that automates keyboard input and mouse clicks, and the top model "Deep Think" that is better at solving complex tasks.

This price is comparable to the $200 monthly subscription service of OpenAI and Anthropic, highlighting that companies are looking for solutions to the high cost of AI development. Google's new package also includes 30TB of cloud storage and an ad-free YouTube subscription.

Previously, Google has launched other subscription services, including an AI-enhanced package for $19.99 per month and a low-priced plan with additional cloud storage. Last week, the company revealed that the number of subscribers to the relevant package has exceeded 150 million.

Pichai told reporters that the rise of generative AI has not completely squeezed out the traditional search business, "this is far from a zero-sum game." He believes that AI is "greatly expanding the application scenarios of search services."