Google’s annual developer conference, now in its ninth year, is also the biggest ever, moving from an indoor convention center to the Shoreline Theater, which can seat more than 20,000 people.

There are also 10 outdoor booths and product experience areas around the venue. The event will be held for 3 consecutive days.

Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include information robot, editing robot, writing robot and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.

This year, Google I/O moved the main venue outside. Photo from Visual China.

But Android is no longer the star of the big event. At a two-hour opening presentation, the new Android N system lasted just 17 minutes, not nearly as long as the new chat app Allo.

A beta version of Android N was released two months before the conference, and Google didn’t leave much to wonder about. The conference didn’t even mention the latest Android user numbers.

So what is Google’s vision of the future this year?

What is Google betting on this year?

Sundar Pichai. Photo from Visual China.

The words Google CEO Sundar Pichai repeated most frequently were natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence, and machine learning (training methods for ARTIFICIAL intelligence).

Google’s first product announcement was not a new Android operating system, but a virtual Assistant called The Google Assistant, a smart Assistant that can be used on phones, TVS, watches and even home devices.

Sounds like Siri? Yes, but better.

In pichai’s live demonstration, Google Assistant did a good job of recognizing natural language, returning good results for sentences like these:

Jungle Book isn’t that a good Book? (Show book review)

Does this restaurant allow children? (Show restaurant reservations and reviews)

Who is the director of The Revenant? (Search results)

Google Home smart speaker

Next up is Google Home, a smart speaker controlled by voice. It will be available later this year.

Google Home does exactly the same thing as Amazon’s earlier Echo smart speaker, which is now widely admired in Silicon Valley.

The main features include:

Music and video: Play music from services like Spotify and Pandora, and videos from YouTube.

Deal with routine: alarm clock, to-do list, changing restaurant reservation, notifying flight changes.

Google Search: Basically what Siri does, but judging by the demo video and Google Now’s previous performance, it’s a lot better.

Control smart furniture: Directly control smart bulbs, Nest and other smart home products.

Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.

Amazon Echo. Image courtesy CNET

Google Home’s main advantage over Amazon Echo or Siri is likely to be better voice control and search capabilities.

However, access to third-party services is currently communicated directly by Google and not open to developers.

Google executives at the meeting said Google Home would be the gateway to the future Google Smart Home. The new product comes from the Chromecast team, and the smart-home platform built around Nest hasn’t been mentioned at all.

Virtual reality development platform – this fall

Two years ago, I/O released Cardboard VR glasses. The Cardboard app has now been downloaded 50 million times.