We react to Google I/O 2026: The Vergecast Livestream

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29:26all right we're back it's time to talk search time to talk vibe coding lots going on yeah there's a lot there's a lot um so it's very interesting google search is sort of a big thing for them and and search ended up getting like smushed in the middle of this presentation because as uh sooner which i told us apparently they're they decided 10 years ago that they're an AI first company. I missed that announcement. I don't know. It feels like more of a slightly more recent thing than that. He made a big deal. He was like, it was 10 years ago that we pivoted our entire company to be AI first and we were the first to do it or something.

30:04And I was like, okay, yeah, but you're still a search company too, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just all of the stuff that they are building, though, does end up in search. And they kind of came out today to try to make a very big splash with search saying, you know, we're kind of completely overhauling it. And that includes just like infusing AI into every corner of search. And it's very interesting because I feel like a lot of what they're announcing maybe already exists today. Very recently, I have been doing searches, I would say particularly on my phone. And I get, I start reading stuff and I'm like, there are no links here.

30:42Like I am just reading an AI result now. And it keeps forcing me to have a conversation. Yeah. And I'm like, I have to exit out. I'm like, no, I'm like trying to scroll. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot. They said it was also the biggest overhaul to their search bar, like search box in 25 years. And it was a little like they basically said they were going to make it bigger and allow for longer queries and then automatically take you into AI mode, which is kind of what I feel like is already happening when we use it. But I guess it's going to be for everyone instead of just some. Yeah, it's unclear how much they're just sort of saying like, no, this is official now.

31:20We want you to think of us as being in this different format. And I think that is probably part of what's happening here. It's really interesting. Google for many years now has been going out there saying like, you know, younger users and people in certain countries, they don't use properly formatted search queries. They don't just say like Indian food. They say, all right, I want a place that's open during these hours. That's great for my parents. And that serves, you know, Indian cuisine and that's near. And it's like, I'm like, who does that? Who on earth makes a search query like that? Like that's, that's nuts.

31:58And I will acknowledge like the more that they have infused AI into stuff and the more that I have gotten comfortable using chat GBT and Gemini and all these other things, the more that like, I feel like I'm losing the ability to make a like succinct search query and I'm like, I'm going to search for something crazy and specific because it will more often than not get me a slightly better result. And so this is what they're saying. They're like, now the search bar, you can somehow you can add Chrome tabs to it. You can throw in files and photos and yeah, put it in a giant sentence and it can respond.

32:31You can also get back. This was what I thought was really different. You can get back custom widgets and visualizations of your search. So like, if you're searching for how a black hole works, obviously reading about it, it's a little hard to parse, but it can make you a custom visualization or a custom widget or like, you know, so that's really interesting. Like it will automatically decide when I think when you need something like that and then deliver it to you. And it'll be custom made for your specific query. It won't be like every time anyone searches for a black hole, that's what's going to happen.

33:04This is like both fascinating and terrifying. Like on one hand, I sort of admire the fact that Google, right? Like they have the, I don't know, one of the most lucrative products in existence with Google Search. It is an interface used by a zillion people on the planet. And I think, you know, famously when you have a product that is that widely used, you have to be really, really cautious in making changes to it because there's backlash. And I think Google has actually in the past couple of years been really aggressive at making changes to imbue search into or imbue AI into search. And, you know, it is creating these richer experiences where they're saying, OK, you search for how does a black hole work?

33:46You know what Google thinks is a better experience than giving you 10 links about it is we'll just generate an interactive for you that just shows you it. And they're also going to let you vibe code like mini apps within search. So like if you want to create a fitness tracker or something with like your calendar connected, you can do that directly within search and then come back to it. So it's not a one time thing. So they want you to for things that you search all the time, like habitual searches, they want you to have kind of like a landing page that stays the same, but with updates for those, which I think is interesting because I do search for the same things all the time.

34:22And it's like, you know, that would be it's just interesting how they're thinking about this, because, yeah, it's totally different. And I also am worried that some of these things sound really cool, but some of them sound a little much. And I'm wondering if it's going to turn out to be like a Windows 11 situation when Microsoft like forced Copilot to every single area of the operating system. And people really, you know, did not like that. It's funny. I was also just thinking about how OpenAI was like, no more side quests. And then Google comes out and they're like, we're putting AI in docs. We're putting black hole widgets in search.

34:56Like every single thing has some weird new way to Gemini. It's because Google has the money to do some side quests. Dude, they really do. And they have the data and they have you everywhere. Yeah, it's a lot. And I think it's particularly interesting watching what they're doing in search. Because search, like at the end of the day, that is the most used product. and they are trying to make sure you keep using it and use more of it. And these changes are very, very impressive. Like you think about the black hole one, it's like, you know what, that interactive, like assuming it's accurate, which it has to be accurate every single time someone makes that search because they're generating it again and again and again and again, which honestly seems a little bit inefficient.

35:38That probably means that all of the links you would click to read about how black holes work aren't getting clicked. And so, you know, Neelan and David talked about this. at length, right? This is how the web dies. If Google is the end, right? If you just search on Google and that's it, and it can do everything for you, that's the end. And increasingly, they're building so much capability into Google. Like, look, I'm not going to say it's not impressive. It's very impressive that they can instantaneously build a little widget for you. it's also a little scary. I constantly am thinking about like how things could go wrong as an AI reporter, obviously.

36:22And I'm just thinking about like, when we had when AI overviews were released, obviously, it was giving like a lot of dangerous advice. Some of it was like, kind of funny, dangerous, like putting glue on pizza. And some of it was not at all funny at like, you know, telling you what you should do when you're pregnant, and it's wrong, like things like that, like people could really believe. And I'm just wondering, like, when is it going to give like a diagram for how to make a bomb? You know, like, I just really feel like there's so many, like, we'll see what they do here. And like, I always read team this type of thing myself to see like the messed up things they can do and see where the safety processes lack.

36:57But I'm definitely going to be doing that for this because I feel like there's so many things that it could just be like, I don't know, I can imagine like kids using it and then it like gives you a diagram of something inappropriate or like a widget to explain something else. And it's like, you know, I don't know. We're going to have to red team this for sure, because it'll be interesting to see like where their safety guardrails fall short. And the other thing I thought was really interesting was AI overviews. They were really they were really like locked in on trying to save their reputation from and get away from the embarrassment there.

37:29They were like, everyone uses AI overviews. They were saying that it was like, yeah. But it's so funny. They're like, look how many was it like a billion people? 2.5 billion monthly users. Yeah. Okay. You know why? Like if you put literally anything on Google.com, it instantly gets that many people. Like that's not impressive. Yeah. You can't opt out. So it's like, I mean, I use it, but do I want to? Like, no. Right. Sometimes I click into AI overviews by accident. I'm like, I thought that was the button for the links. And also it's like there no matter what, honestly. Like it's like, even if you don't click into it, it's there.

38:03So I don't know. And I just thought it was funny how they were really like locking into that. They were like, it's been a revelation. They said our biggest upgrade to search ever. And that is a revelation for Google.com because they keep more people, which like very good for the business, not so good for literally every other business that, you know, wants you to click the link. Yeah. I mean, this is what people in the chat are talking about this too. Simply said to me, it says, I feel that this is very complicated for the current web. It's like, yep, that's it. That sums it up. Yeah. They're taking the current web and they are remaking it on Google.com.

38:45Okay. So a bunch of other things that they announced that are a little more consumer facing. One, another vibe coding thing that I'm excited to try out in Google AI Studio, which is one of 500 products they have that allows you to use AI. They're adding the ability to prompt and create. They're adding the ability to VibeCode Android apps. You'll be able to test them out in your browser, send them to your phone. I think eventually you'll be able to have friends and family test them out with you. I think at some point down the road, they can make it onto the Play Store. This is cool. We were on this show, like, what, last summer talking about our VibeCoded projects.

39:29Yeah. Have you experimented more closely? Yeah, I have. I feel like it's been fun. They've definitely gotten better. And it's been fun to see how different tools stack up. I will say I have fun vibe coding stuff. And it's a really fun project. But I usually don't use it again after because sometimes it'll break. Or it's not that useful. So I think it's fun to do. But I still haven't found anything that I'm using constantly on my own. besides just a one-off thing or I'd come back to it a couple times. No, this has been my problem too. I think I have absolutely abandoned more totally complete and functional Vibe Quoted projects than I have continued to use.

40:10And there are some that I've continued to use. I made it using Claude. I made a notes app that I really love. I'm tinkering with an email app that I've started using. It's super impressive, but it's like just because you can make stuff doesn't mean that it is good and worth using. I have not tried making anything for mobile yet. And so, and I'm an Android user. So I'm excited to be able to tinker with this, see if it works. But I also have no idea what I'm going to make, right? Like there's the ability to make, it doesn't mean that I need to make something. I feel like I have to just like, you know, like as I go about my day, like just jot down like my pain points and like then go from there.

40:49Because when I sit down to think about what I shouldn't make, it never comes up. But like during the day when I'm really annoyed with something that's when I think of it like I remember David vibe coded like a really cool tracker for his baby when he had his new baby and then like I don't know I um like one of my someone I interviewed um vibe coded a good reads alternative for his wife because she was really annoyed that like there was no way to say you only read some of a book I think without seeming like you were kind of a failure like you couldn't like I like I don't remember what it was because I don't use Goodreads, but it was basically like if you stop a book, it's kind of like, oh, it's always on your shelf forever.

41:25But like, what if you just don't like the book and you don't want to keep going? And so he like created a way to make it like less embarrassing or whatever, if you didn't finish. I like that. Yeah, you can feel good about throwing it down because you, listen, you're decisive about not liking it. That is the thing though, right? It's like, it's very, very specific in this stuff that like, I don't know, in the moment, it sounds good. Will it actually sound good later? So I think this is like a nice thing for them to offer. But again, Google's Vibe coding tools have not been the best so far. So I think it'll be really interesting what is possible.

42:01This also plays into, they announced last week during the Android show that they're bringing Vibe coded widgets or they're not even calling it Vibe coded. It's like prompted AI generated widgets as just like a general consumer feature to a bunch of phones in Android 17. And I think the question for all these is like, okay, what can it actually access on your phones? What can it actually do? Because they keep being like, you can have a widget that will generate recipes for you. And I'm like, why do I want that? And will they be good? Yeah. It's like, I don't want just like a bunch of recipes on my home screen.

42:36Yeah, I pay for New York Times cooking. Like, I'm good. Right. I've got a hookup for that. So that's one of the big things. They also announced a new app called Pix, which is AI-prompted image editing, unless you prompt to edit specific portions of an image. The demos that we saw were okay. And when the demo is okay, I'm a little skeptical, you know? Yeah. And the other thing they talked a little bit about, and this is actually a very big deal, is I think they're expanding their watermarking tool, SynthID, into more places. They're expanding the ability to check on C2PA credentials. So they're doing more to help people find out when images and video are AI-generated or AI-edited.

43:31A funny thing that Jess Weatherbet on our team pointed out to me is Google's approach to this is, want to find out if AI was used to create that? Use our AI to find out. It seems like you have to use an AI system in Search or Gemini in order to get that. And can you trust it? We'll find out. Yeah, and the fact that you do have to add, there's some friction there, you know? So we'll see. At least they got NVIDIA and OpenAI, I think, to sign on. so you know hopefully it spreads but I don't know there's always ways to get around these things is the hard part so I mean anything's better than nothing but I want to mention really quickly before we get a break they also did showed a teaser of the Android XR glasses that are coming later this year their Warby Parker collab and their Gentle Monsters collab just some like you know regular looking sunglasses with some cameras and speakers in them.

44:36They did a demo on stage that showed Gemini from the glasses interacting with allegedly things on the phone, things on a computer too. I think it was very impressive. They even kind of celebrated that the demo actually worked. And I will say these are the least ugly camera glasses I've seen. I've seen some pretty ugly ones and these are more chic, I will say. So good collab. It is interesting. At the end of the day, it's not clear that this is doing that much different from the Ray-Ban Metaglasses. But if you take the Ray-Ban Metaglasses and give them access to all of the personal data that Google has access to on you, they will, in fact, be more capable.

45:22So Google is going to have an advantage there, and we're going to find out more about that later this year. They did not have a lot of concrete details to share. All right, we got to take a break. When we get back, we're going to talk a little bit about Google's, I think, grandiose wrap up to the event. And Hayden's been covering the Muscovy-Altman trial, and we'll hear a little bit about that as well.

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49:13All right, we're back. I just want to say, for those of you in the comments, I see you, I hear you shouting out the thunder round, and I appreciate it. The fight continues. One day, we will bring it back. All right. So to wrap up, I want to talk about how Google concluded the keynote, which really interesting. I didn't go back to check this, but every time I can remember, they bring Sundar back out to bookend the event. And, you know, he says some nice words and waves everybody away. This time they brought out Demis Hassabis, who leads Google DeepMind. and he closed out the event with some really grandiose thoughts about AI.

49:58And I'm just going to throw to the clip here because I want everyone to hear what he had to say. Google's cutting-edge research and products will help unlock AGI's incredible potential for the benefit of the entire world. When we look back at this time, I think we will realize that we were standing in the foothills of the singularity. It will be a profound moment for humanity. This technology will be a force multiplier for human ingenuity and usher in a new golden age of scientific discovery and progress, improving the lives of everyone everywhere. I mean, this is he's like, we're going to reach the singularity.

50:37AGI is coming. And I will say, compared to the other people who run major AI labs, I trust Demis slightly more. The man won a Nobel Prize. And I do think that it's very interesting listening to him. I get the impression that this is a guy who is like, all right, all right, I'll make Gmail talk to you. But you got to give me some money so I can make some science happen. And the fact that Musk and Allman both were really, really fearful of him isn't a bad sign. Yeah, but I am curious, like, you know, you are talking to all the people in the AI world. I think Demis' predictions are quite bold. I'm curious how many of them are thinking about the science, health, medicine stuff right now.

51:27Because it's funny, everyone keeps talking about AGI, AGI, AGI, but they're so single-mindedly focused, it feels like, on how can we sell you stuff. Yeah, it's because to get to there, you have to sell a lot of stuff. So, I mean, it makes sense. But especially with Google was saying it's like it's CapEx, its investment in AI has changed from like 31 billion in 2022 to like 190 billion now. So they do need money. But yeah, I've I've been it's been interesting thinking about. I don't know, I think that sometimes it depends on the company and it depends on like the year. But there have been a lot of times that AI labs kind of lean on health science stuff as kind of like a piece of good PR when they're when they're facing some bad stuff.

52:19Like, you know, they're like, oh, but we're also working on curing cancer, you know, and sometimes they are. We haven't seen a lot of movement there. But I mean, we have seen DeepMind in particular has done a lot more science, has had a lot more success in science than any other AI lab I've seen, which is kind of nice to see. But I don't know, the foothills of the singularity, it's a little much. And I will say, I don't know, I think I've seen a trend lately with AI labs of like just really harping on the fact, like he said, improving the lives of everyone everywhere. And they've all been really harping on the fact that like, oh, we're they're almost like going.

52:58They're just like beating us over the head with like, it's not going to harm you. It's not going to hurt you. It's actually going to make your life better in every single possible way. And I've been seeing, you know, it's just interesting to see like this kind of new marketing blitz of personal super intelligence, like AI that you're in control of when, in fact, like Pew research studies from last summer say that like adults feel that like I think 60 percent of adults don't feel in control of how AI used to use in their life at all. I mean, how could they? Right. Right. Like, unless you are like an open claw bro.

53:32Yeah. Like, everyone else. I mean, actually, then you've given up all control, but you're like so on board. Yeah. Actually, that's why open claw was so popular. Like, at ClawCon, when I went, everyone was like, yeah, this makes us feel like we have more control than giving all our data to the lab. So it's just interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's on your Mac mini, baby. I do think it's so interesting that they chose to end it with Demis and on this note, which I think to your point, maybe that is the idea. Maybe they're trying to put some friendlier vibes out there. Demis mentioned shortly before this, they're doing some sort of Gemini for science thing where they'll allow agents to do different, I don't know, research tasks.

54:14I don't know because they gave him 30 seconds to discuss it out of this two-minute keynote. Probably didn't fit into the user-friendly language they were going for. I know. And it's like, genuinely, I am so much more interested in the stuff that DeepMind is doing around, allegedly, around health and medicine and science. It would be great to hear more about that and not just hear that the singularity is apparently coming soon. Don't love the lack of details on that. The singularity is a conversation with your Gmail account. Congratulations, we've made it. It's not what it was all cracked up to be.

54:58Okay, Hayden, let's talk about the other big AI story of the week, which is a little trial that you've been covering for actually three weeks. Right. So yeah, do you want to talk about what came down this week? Yeah, I mean, it was this week, we just basically got the jury deliberation verdict like right away. But it's been interesting because for the past week, it was just nonstop kind of fodder for everyone getting more evidence for the fact that like a lot of the people in charge of AI just aren't trustworthy. and don't love to see that, you know? I mean, it's like piece of evidence after piece of evidence just showing that they are like temperamentally incapable of being honest with each other.

55:44And maybe that's changed in recent years, but, you know, it's happened for years and years. And that's what we saw through all these texts. Like, and the other thing I saw that was a little bit disconcerting is just the vying for control, constant vying for control, despite the language that they're all parroting, which is we don't want anyone to be in control. We don't want an AGI dictatorship. We don't want any one person to be making all the decisions. Yet, a lot of times in the background, they were all vying for control. And sometimes that was, oh, well, it's better that I be in control than someone else.

56:14But as we all know from like every movie, that's not really the best approach either. So, yeah, I don't know. Even Satya Nadella was like talking to some of his colleagues saying, well, if we're putting this much money in, we need to have control of destiny. And so, you know, I mean, it's just those were the two big takeaways I saw. It was like the constant untrustworthiness for years and years and years and kind of like playing both sides and, you know, telling people what they want to hear and then doing something different in the background. Not just Altman, but like a lot of executives at a lot of companies.

56:46I mean, we saw what Miramarati was playing both sides as Altman was ousted. Yeah. And then, you know, Brockman, like with Musk, like there was a lot going on there. And then, yeah, just the vying for control of literally everyone involved. It was just really interesting. Even Brockman and Satsukover at one point told Altman, oh, like, why do you care about being CEO so much? Does it have something to do with your political goals? Because you wanted to run for governor. So, yeah, there's just a lot of power. Like, the reason I'm an AI reporter is honestly to cover the power dynamics in this space because they're so crazy.

57:19And this trial really just, like, highlighted the weird power dynamics that have always been at play, but we've never seen them so clearly. It's entirely unclear to me if Elon thought he was going to win this trial. It does feel likely to me that he wanted all of this nonsense to come out, that he wanted people to see just how much of a train wreck OpenAI's leadership is. one of the things that he did say um was his like you know what he was hoping to get from the suit was for um altman and or brockman to either or both step down so obviously you know it doesn't look like that's going to happen but he did really want to um you know this is a petty thing for him and he wants to you know like he it's both petty and not like he you know really cares about this he says but also he really wants to shine a light on some of the shady stuff that's been going on so So, you know, everyone involved in this whole situation was shady.

58:15And that's what's interesting. It's like Musk trying to do this to them has also done it to himself. It's just there's mud slinging everywhere, basically. So you were tuned in for all this. Why do you think it was so easy for the jury? The jury delivered for two hours, right? Yeah, I mean, it was just too long. Like he had waited too long to bring the suit. That's what's sad about this. It's like if someone else had brought the suit or if it happened sooner, maybe we would have seen a different outcome. But it was just sad to make everyone sit through this for three weeks only to discover there's no real decision here.

58:49But Musk said he's going to appeal. We'll see. To be honest, I don't think that he had a big chance of actually winning because there was never like he donated this money through donor advised funds. There was a middleman there. He never had a signed agreement saying, oh, this is what the money is going to go to. You know, I don't think it really held up in court at all. I think this is more of a way to kind of, yeah, mudsling and just expose things about a company that he, you know, wants to control again. If you're interested in hearing more, I can't recommend enough checking out Hayden's coverage and Liz Lopato's coverage on the site.

59:28They've been covering this trial through and through for the past three weeks. and you can kind of just go through and read the dirt that came out from each executive's testimony. And it has been, I don't know, but a delight is one way to phrase it, to read through this stuff. All right, well, thank you so much for tuning in live with us. This was a fun one. That's it for The Verge Cast. Remember to subscribe to The Verge for ad-free episodes of our podcasts, exclusive newsletters, and so much more. We'd love to hear from you all. Email us, vergecast at theverge.com. Maybe mention the Thunder Round.

1:00:02It's due for a comeback. Or you can call the hotline 866-VERGE-11. The Vergecast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network. Today's show is produced by Eric Gomez and Travis Larchuk. See you next time. Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up, and audit dread? It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place, and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clearer visibility, faster deals. Zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it compliance. Get it? Join the 15 ,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to Vanta.com slash com.

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