How Google Is Taking on Rivals in AI and Foldable Devices | WSJ Tech News Briefing

[Music] welcome to Tech news briefing it's Thursday May 11th I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal Wednesday was Google's IO developer conference and this year all eyes were on how the company's products would include new features using generative artificial intelligence and Google didn't disappoint it announced it's making its AI chat bot Bard widely available to English speakers with plans to roll it out in 40 languages including Japanese and Korean soon but that wasn't all it's also rolling out AI search here's Google CEO Sundar pichai we've been applying AI to make our products radically more helpful for a while with generative AI we are taking the next step with the bold and responsible approach we are reimagining all our core products including search Google's AI search won't be rolled out immediately if you're interested you'll have to join a waitlist I spoke with our reporter miles Krupa who was at Google I O about these developments and what they mean for the company miles did you get a chance to test out Google's new generative search experience I did get a chance to test out the search features on Tuesday before the conference and they felt to me like Google really trying to integrate this stuff into the existing experience rather than create a whole separate experience they're trying to do it in a way that feels natural to search including things like links fairly prominently although maybe not as prominently as some would hope and intriguingly it still clearly had some issues when I was testing it we asked it who is winning the Russia Ukraine war and it gave the answer that Ukraine was winning to which a Google search executive said it should not have given that answer at all how does Google plan to deal with concerns about the AI search potentially generating incorrect results so what Google said is they took the approach that they basically wanted to make sure all the answers the AI generates could be corroborated by links on the internet so whenever you see a response it'll have you know at least three probably links to the right that generally back up the information given in the response it also said that it did some magic with its search index and Incorporated a bunch of different work it's been doing on factuality as it rolls out things like featured Snippets so it's a previous feature that gives you sort of a one true answer to a bunch of different questions so their answer is basically it was good enough it's still not perfect and I think we'll have to see given the way they're rolling this out whether the early testers find it decreases or increases their trust in the answers they provides so where does advertising fit into all of this because that's a big money maker for Google personally when I was asking it questions on Tuesday I wasn't seeing a lot of ads but you know Google so far is saying that there will clearly be places for advertisements in this new feature I think there's potential for new kinds of innovation in the way ads are delivered For Better or Worse within the AI generated responses did announce plans to incorporate a products yes it's fair to say that basically every Google product at this point will have some form of AI in it the other big announcement was they rolled out their big new artificial intelligence model called palm2 and they said that this would be used across 25 plus products that they're announcing so that's everything from things like workspace Gmail Google docs to Android things that can work on your mobile phone to clearly search and bard miles it's felt a bit like Google has been on the back foot when it comes to announcing and releasing generative AI tools especially as compared to its rival Microsoft with these new releases where does Google stand now Google on Wednesday clearly wanted to show the world that they are still the leader I think they would say the leader in artificial intelligence research and that they're also speeding up the process of putting this stuff into products they really threw a lot at the wall and we'll have to watch the reaction over the next few weeks the biggest test will really be how users respond to these new search features because they are quite different from what Google search normally is the sort of 10 Blue Links the web addresses that are listed when you type in something to the search box while still feeling integrated to the Google experience so I don't know it could go either way I think Google is trying to sort of regain the front foot after I O all right that's our Google reporter miles Krupa coming to us from Google I O thanks miles thanks Zoe [Music] now ai wasn't the only new thing Google showed off at IO it also unveiled a new tablet and new phones with the Highlight being its new pixel fold it's Google's first foray into flexible displays here's Rick alster low the company's senior vice president of devices and services it's the only foldable engineered by Google to adapt to how you want to use it with a familiar front display that works great when it's folded and when it's unfolded it's our thinnest phone yet and the thinnest foldable on the market with me to discuss this announcement is our personal Tech columnist Nicole Nguyen Nicole can you start by describing the pixel fold to us the pixel fold looks like a normal phone from the outside but it has a hinge and you can open it like a book to reveal a larger screen so it goes from normal phone to mini tablet it's a small thing that can turn into a big thing Okay Google's competitor Samsung already makes a foldable phone how is Google's different Google's is different because it runs a cleaner version of Android so it's more similar to a stock version of Android Samsung's phones typically have a skin over the operating system and you'll usually see Samsung apps as default apps but on Pixel phones Google apps are the default apps and I think that's probably the biggest difference another big difference is the pixel fold is squatter so it feels more like a normal phone when you hold it closed Samsung's Galaxy Z fold is really long and skinny and so it can feel cramped when you're typing on it and also the two screens when folded on the pixel fold they lie flat the Samsung Galaxy Z fold has this weird Quirk that leaves a gap where the hinge is so these are really small details the biggest difference is really how android looks on the phones what is it like interacting with the software on this foldable device so it has some typical Google AI powered Wizardry one standout feature is called live translate and if you expand the phone and you point it at the person that you're conversing with face to face it'll show the other person what you are saying in their preferred language and on the other screen on the wide screen you'll see what they're saying in your language and you can also take high resolution selfies with the main camera on the back it'll show you a preview on that front screen if you have it open apart from some of those software features are there any pixel specific features that are going to attract people who are made fence about a foldable phone Google did a lot of work to optimize its Android apps for the pixel fold screen so that includes YouTube Gmail and neat those apps will eventually roll out to other foldable phones most notably Samsung's but you'll probably see them on the pixel first and live translate will be exclusive to the pixel at launch that's usually such a draw for people looking to buy new phones you know for the folds price I was disappointed that this camera system didn't get a bigger upgrade the specs are pretty similar to the less expensive pixels and what is the price for the pixel fold it's 17.99 1800 which is the same price as Samsung's Galaxy Z fold 4 and that's because screens are a very costly component of smartphones and this thing has tripled the screen real estate of a normal smartphone so if people do want to spend nearly eighteen hundred dollars on this phone when and where will they be able to get it Google is accepting pre-orders for the fold now but it won't ship until June I will say that if you're thinking about getting your first foldable you may want to hold out until August when Samsung will probably release its next Generation fold the for anybody side to get into this space the smartphone market is a little weird right now where the market is shrinking overall but Ultra Premium phones are still selling people tend to buy the higher end stuff mostly iPhone flagships and Samsung flagships and Google's most expensive phone before the pixel fold was 8.99 and so I think that they are signaling to the smartphone market that they too can make a high-end premium phone and are hoping to attract those customers alright that's our personal Tech columnist Nicole Nguyen thanks for joining us thanks Zoe and that's it for today's Tech news briefing for more Tech stories head over to our website wsj.com I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal thanks for listening foreign

Channel: WSJ News

Views: 38,282

Keywords: google, ai, google ai, bard, bard ai, google bard, google bard ai, bard vs chatgpt, ai search, generative ai, ai chatbot, chatgpt, foldable phone, google pixel fold, google io 2023, google io, pixel fold, pixel fold features, rivals in ai, samsung, sundar pichai, google ceo, google ai search, ai battle, live translate, search index, foldable devices, tech news briefing, wsj, palm two google, gmail, google docs, android, microsoft, flexible displays, samsung galaxy z, techy

Id: KBaYRT-mL_c

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Thu May 11 2023