Microsoft just held its Build developer conference in its backyard in Seattle last week, TechCrunch reported. Google is also holding a developer conference this week at a venue near its Mountain View campus. There was a sense at Microsoft’s developer conference that the company seems to be enjoying a Renaissance under Satya Nadella. Google’s developer conference was a bit different, with its loose tone seeming aimless and uneventful.

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Of course, the two companies have long been rivals, though perhaps more so now than ever. They are competing in areas such as cloud computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), productivity applications, and virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).

The comparison between Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, and Mr Nadella’s snippets is fascinating. Their speeches were very different in style and content. But while Pichai spent most of his time laying out new statistics and a new product or two, Nadella spent his time on stage talking about the impact of technological advances rather than the “AI first” strategy the company is pursuing. He sees great opportunities as well as inevitable risks from such technological advances.

Nadella mentioned one of Microsoft’s core principles: “Let’s use technology to empower more people. As we make amazing advances in computer vision, speech and text understanding, we want to enable more people to use these technologies and participate in the economy of our society.”

While Google’s I/O keynote focused on its tremendous achievements, Nadella spent a lot of time talking about the importance of empowering more people, which felt more real. After attending both events, I reflected that Microsoft may have a more complete vision for the AI-first world we are entering. If Google has a similar vision, it may not have articulated it well at its developer conference.

AI is preferred

The most obvious area where Microsoft is competing with Google, outside its core cloud computing services, is machine learning. Pichai noted in his keynote speech that Google is transitioning from a “mobile-first” company to an “AI-first” one. Microsoft is essentially following the same path, albeit with different words from Nadella. But in their keynote speeches, neither mentioned the other, and the similarities were clear.

At the same time, the products the two companies use to show off their AI capabilities are strikingly similar. Microsoft uses Story Remix, a nifty app that automates our photos and videos to make fun home videos. Google, for example, is making it easier to share your best Photos with its machine learning technology. Story Remix is a very interesting product and received a lot of applause from developers at Build. Google’s Google Photos feature sounds useful, but it hasn’t caught people’s attention. Furthermore, the developers didn’t learn anything from Google’s introduction.

Google Lens, which can identify useful information in images, seems likely to be useful, but it’s worth noting that Google’s vision at the conference was unclear, with many telling me later that they had a hard time figuring out if it was a developer tool. Whether it’s a built-in feature of Google Assistant or a standalone app. That’s definitely not a good sign. Google also offers Google Goggles, an app that allows you to identify objects that have been around you for years. I thought Google forgot it existed, because it often does.

However, the two companies’ core CONSUMER AI efforts are Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Assistant. This is clearly an area where Google has a head start over Microsoft, but only because it offers more accessible hardware interfaces and it understands its users better. Cortana’s performance is good enough, but because it’s active on the desktop and not really connected to the devices around us, using it always feels unnatural.

In the arena of virtual personal assistants, Google actually made a lot of interesting announcements. The fact that it’s coming to the upcoming iPhone shows that Google wants it to be a cross-platform service, and it’s interesting to integrate into Chromecast. No new features are available for Google Assistant, which is disappointing and follows an unfortunate trend of Google’s I/O announcements in recent years.

It’s worth mentioning the Microsoft Graph, which Microsoft is now developing to connect all devices and applications. Whether it works as planned remains to be seen, but it’s a bold project that could have a profound impact on how you use Microsoft tools or Android in the future.

VR/AR/Real World

Another topic Microsoft and Google talked about at their respective developer conferences was virtual and augmented reality. Both Microsoft and Google are emphasising their priorities in this area, with the former focusing on “fully augmented reality” (Microsoft calls it “mixed reality”) and the latter on virtual reality (Google calls it “real reality”).

Microsoft has taken the lead in standalone AR experiences with HoloLens, even though the device costs $3,000. Google is doing things differently now because it wants to use machine vision (combined with its Tango technology), using the phone as the primary medium for viewing AR.

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As for VR, Google talked a lot about its standalone VR headset this year. While it has revealed some partners, it remains vague about specs, prices and release dates. Microsoft, on the other hand, is focusing on working with partners such as Acer to develop wired helmets that link its HoloLens technology for tracking user movements to internet-connected Windows 10 PCS. Microsoft is delivering development kits that consumers will be able to purchase later this year.

Technically, Microsoft’s HoloLens headset is ahead of the blueprint Google showed off at its developer conference. This is surprising because Google is already leading the way in building virtual reality ecosystems, thanks to its Cardboard device. But it now feels at risk of falling behind.