Google to release smart glasses and add AI ‘agents’ to search engine

{"text":[[{"start":10.1,"text":"Google has unveiled autonomous AI agents and coding tools within its search engine, alongside a new line of smart glasses, as it overhauls its core product under pressure from rivals Anthropic and OpenAI."}],[{"start":22.7,"text":"The changes to Google search will be powered by a new Gemini 3.5 flash model. Chief executive Sundar Pichai said the model was “a major leap forwards in building more capable, intelligent agents”, AI tools that can independently perform tasks based on user instruction."}],[{"start":40.5,"text":"“We’ve been bringing agents to developers and enterprises for a while,” he told Google’s annual I/O conference in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday. “Now we are super focused on bringing the power of agents to consumers so that it works for everyone.”"}],[{"start":54.8,"text":"Google also revealed plans to challenge Meta and others in smart glasses, more than a decade after it shelved its original Google Glass in 2015. It has partnered with Samsung, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to create the glasses with a camera and speaker."}],[{"start":70.45,"text":"The $4.7tn tech giant hopes to gain ground on AI start-up rivals by using its ubiquitous search engine, wide suite of products and extensive user data to capture billions of users."}],[{"start":83.10000000000001,"text":"It announced a new assistant called Spark, which it says can help organise users’ personal lives, reduce administration and automate repetitive tasks. "}],[{"start":92.55000000000001,"text":"Users can choose to allow Spark to remember past actions and access data from other products such as Gmail and Maps to individualise its services."}],[{"start":102.55000000000001,"text":"Spark will be available in a redesigned, expandable Google search box. Users can task the agent to scour the internet unsupervised to shop, provide updates on news, find specific products and book events. "}],[{"start":117.15,"text":"Coding will also be embedded, allowing users to design custom interfaces and build simulations."}],[{"start":123.4,"text":"The changes mark a big step by Google to make agents and coding tools that have become popular with more tech-savvy users in specialised apps, widely available in billions of consumers’ web browsers."}],[{"start":135.25,"text":"Liz Reid, Google’s head of search, said it was “the next step in our journey to bring together the best of a search engine with the best of AI”. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":143.35,"text":"Google has been adding AI features to search in response to changing consumer preferences since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022."}],[{"start":152,"text":"At the I/O event last year Google introduced “AI mode”, the biggest change to search in its 28-year history, which replaced traditional search results with a chatbot. A year earlier, it debuted “AI Overviews” — brief, AI-generated answers — at the top of results."}],[{"start":168.8,"text":"Pichai had been criticised for allowing OpenAI and Anthropic to flourish despite Google and its AI lab DeepMind leading research for years."}],[{"start":177.60000000000002,"text":"Google has made up ground in the past 18 months thanks to its “full-stack” AI strategy, which includes building chips, data centres, foundation models and products in-house. It has committed to spend as much as $190bn this year, supporting this vast capital expenditure with record advertising and cloud earnings."}],[{"start":197.40000000000003,"text":"Investors have responded positively. Its shares have risen roughly 130 per cent in the past 12 months, pushing its valuation close to $5tn, trailing only chipmaker Nvidia."}],[{"start":208.65000000000003,"text":"Still, analysts estimate Google has only a 10 to 15 per cent market share for professional coding and business automation, which have emerged as the clearest way to make money from AI. OpenAI and Anthropic each have about 40 per cent."}],[{"start":223.70000000000005,"text":"Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis said the Gemini 3.5 model’s performance is comparable to Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex but that it ran faster and at as low as half the price."}],[{"start":238.00000000000006,"text":"AI labs have come under intense pressure to obtain enough computing power to run their models, with some facing outages and having to ration clients’ access. Google hopes its latest in-house chips will give it more capacity to operate its models at a lower computing cost."}],[{"start":255.05000000000007,"text":"A “pro” version of Gemini 3.5 will be released next month, which is a bigger large language model more capable than the flash version."}],[{"start":262.8500000000001,"text":"Hassabis said artificial general intelligence, AI technology that can outperform humans at most tasks, was “on the horizon”."}],[{"start":271.05000000000007,"text":"However, “it’s important that we are clear-eyed about the potential challenges, and use all the tools in our disposal, to ensure the safety of our agentic systems”, the Nobel Prize winner added. "}],[{"start":282.20000000000005,"text":"Google also said it was gaining traction with its redesigned Gemini app. Its monthly users more than doubled in a year to 900mn but still trail ChatGPT’s 900mn weekly users."}],[{"start":294.20000000000005,"text":"Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is also using its financial muscle to try and squeeze its smaller rivals, which are burning cash in the pursuit of growth. Google on Tuesday said it would cut the cost of its top-tier AI subscription."}],[{"start":307.1,"text":"Other products unveiled include Gemini Omni, which can create videos from a mix of text, images and audio inputs and edit them based on voice commands."}],[{"start":323.85,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779252228_8029.mp3"}