Most individuals will bear in mind Sergey Brin for his iconic (and brave) demo of Google Glass throughout Google’s I/O developer convention in 2012. 12 years later, the Google co-founder is again at I/O, however to speak about different issues… form of.

Following the opening day keynote earlier this week, in an intimate Q&A session with members of the press, Brin shared his ideas on Undertaking Astra, Gemini Professional 1.5, and his primary AI use case.

Undertaking Astra, Google’s multimodal imaginative and prescient of “clever methods that present reasoning, planning, and reminiscence,” was arguably probably the most bold AI announcement through the day’s two-hour keynote. The naming, very similar to Undertaking Starline, says all of it. Fittingly, the conversational tech was demoed with the digicam app on a telephone and a pair of sensible glasses.

“It is humorous as a result of it is like the right {hardware},” Brin responded when requested about Undertaking Astra and the way its potential wearable type issue compares to the now decade-old Google Glass. “It is just like the killer app now, 10 years later. (I simply want I) had timed {that a} bit higher,” the Google co-founder added.

Whereas the rise and fall of Google Glass is a narrative in and of itself, the imaginative and prescient of the product has made a dramatic comeback in recent times because of AI tech and the pursuit of discovering one of the best {hardware} to swimsuit it — whether or not that be glasses, lapel pins, or orange squares. Brin’s choice? One thing that is hands-free, wearable, and not a telephone. 

The latter is the place Google could also be headed within the close to time period, with the corporate having introduced a number of multimodal Gemini integrations with Android telephones at I/O. Sooner or later, a extra frictionless expertise that does away with having to level a display screen round is sensible.

Past the {hardware}, what actually excites Brin — and was the first purpose for his return to Google after retiring in 2019 — is AI. Since rejoining the corporate in 2023, as reported by The Wall Avenue Journal, Brin has been integral in growing Google AI merchandise like Gemini, which continues to broaden as the overall mannequin spine of assorted Google units and companies.

At I/O this yr, Google unveiled an up to date Gemini Professional 1.5 mannequin, able to being fed 2 million tokens (up from 1 million) with the intention to maintain longer conversations and course of larger-sized paperwork. Probably the most spectacular half, to Brin, is the generalizability of the AI mannequin, from with the ability to pull summaries from a number of Gmail messages to coding, the co-founder’s favourite AI use case. 

“Being a pc scientist, I wish to part of that (AI),” mentioned Brin. “I can not think about a greater time to be a pc scientist than now.”