Google I/O 2018 – An ROI Media Works Recap

It’s been a great year for our big tech company events, like the Facebook F8 which we wrote about just a few days ago, here. This time we’re reviewing what was covered at Google I/O 2018. The keynote was of course led by Google’s CEO and leader, Sundar Pichai.

The first and most important thing:

Google fixed the burger

Pichai took the liberties of owning up to the burger emoji cheese placement fiasco that was causing a storm on social media over the past year. He made sure to clarify that the new emoji was up to social standards, and the cheese was now placed above the burger. Obviously these are the real issues in life.

Now onto the less important topics.

These big tech company conferences from 2018 are all seemingly focusing on the same umbrella of hot topics that are rolling out these days. Just like with F8, there’s a ton of research and innovation leading into artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality (AR). There are some amazing projects that Google is running, including new AI that can help doctors in India diagnose problems in the retina.

Some other exciting and notable announcements for us were new email enhancements, robots making calls for people, and foxes leading people to their destination in maps. What?

Google Duplex: Calling the Shots

This is a feature that Pichai claims Google has been working on for many years, and is finally readily available for commercial use. The example he used during the keynote presentation features what it would look like when a woman wants to book a hair appointment through her Google Assistant and, well, have a listen for yourself.

What’s truly amazing is that the Assistant can actually understand the slight nuances of human language, pauses, emphasis on certain words, etc. We can expect to see a lot of this kind of technology becoming available in the next five years.

You and your computer can now finish each other’s… sandwiches?

Okay, let’s disregard that reference to Frozen, because this next feature is actually pretty cool.

A new feature called Smart Compose will now help you complete intricate sentences in a faster way. All you have to do is hit tab.

To be honest, we’re not completely sold on this feature yet. We draw comparisons to Apple’s QuickType, and Android’s Autotext, but obviously Google’s is a more robust version of these services.

What does the fox say?

Okay, another lame reference, but can you blame us?

Where would we be without Google Maps helping us find our way? Probably in the middle of the ocean, that’s where. Google has recently introduced an AR experience into their Maps app to help people navigate. This includes an easy-to-understand floating arrow pointing left or right, and it even shows information tags for locations nearby.

And of course, some developers were having fun with the idea of having an AR guide:

See, we weren’t just saying that stuff for nothing.

All of this innovation is inspiring, and we can’t wait to see what Google announces for 2019. Help spread the word of these cool innovations by sharing this page!

All the images in this post are from the Google I/O website. You can view the entire keynote presentation here. The video of Google Duplex was screen captured by Tech Crunch.