Developer conference season marches on today as Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his team prepare for the annual Google I/O keynote address on Tuesday morning in Mountain View, California. Like Facebook F8, Microsoft Build and Apple’s WWDC, Google I/O is primarily for developers, but there are often enough consumer-facing announcements sprinkled through the show to keep everyone watching online engaged from start to finish.
Before we get to the rumors and speculation, the live stream of the event is scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET. According to Google, the event is expected to last an hour and a half. Not all of that time will be focused on exciting reveals and new hardware, but hopefully there will be enough to keep us watching.
Google always keeps its I/O announcements close to the vest, but based on a colossal leak that we covered earlier today, we have a feeling that Android P is going to take center stage during the keynote. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as the developer preview has been available for two months, but we’re finally going to learn more about what the updated operating system is capable of, such as a new app switcher, new gestures and new features.
There’s also a decent chance we’ll hear more about the next wave of Wear OS devices, a new Android TV streaming stick, improvements to Google Assistant, and Android Things, which recently hit its final developer preview.
There will be plenty of discussion regarding artificial intelligence and machine learning. After all, AI is far and away the hottest trend in the tech industry right now, and we can expect Google to use this event as an opportunity to reassure the world that it’s still a leader in this important space. Google Lens was one of the more intriguing announcements of last year’s conference, so it’s possible we’ll see more of the same this year.
VR and AR will certainly play a part as well, especially with Lenovo’s standalone headset launching just a few days ago. And of course, we can expect Google Assistant to be at the center of nearly everything Google covers on Tuesday during its big Google I/O 2018 keynote presentation. The show is set to kick off shortly, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be the main speaker once things get started. You’ll find the Google I/O 2018 live stream below.
