If you tuned in to Google I/O 2023 for AI, you would not have been disappointed. Google managed to pack more "AI"s per minute than there may be artificial intelligence applications and services in the world. It was as if Google saw what Microsoft was doing with Bing AI and said, "You think that's AI and search? We'll show you some AI that'll put hair (generative, of course) on your chest."
There was not, it seemed, a single sentence uttered during the two-hour-plus keynote that didn't feature "AI." But if that over-saturation of Large Language Model (LLM) activity, much of it driven by the new PaLM 2, made it hard to keep track of exactly what Google is up to, I came away with an understanding that Google is not only deadly serious about AI, but also about beating back Microsoft's encroachment on its near total ownership of the search market.
