Google I/O and Microsoft Build 2025 dominated tech headlines this week, with both companies unveiling ambitious AI initiatives and developer tools. These annual conferences serve as crucial indicators of industry direction, revealing how these tech giants plan to implement artificial intelligence across their products and platforms. Here’s our roundup of the most important announcements from both events.
Google I/O 2025: Redefining the AI Experience
Google’s biggest developer conference of the year kicked off on May 20 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, bringing a flurry of announcements spanning their entire product ecosystem. From powerful new AI models to exciting updates for Android and Google Workspace, here’s what caught our attention:
Gemini’s Evolution
Google is pushing the boundaries of AI with several notable Gemini updates:
– Gemini Ultra: A premium subscription tier priced at $249.99 per month (currently U.S. only) offering the “highest level of access” to Google’s AI services. Ultra subscribers get access to Veo 3 video generation, Flow video editing app, and 30TB of storage across Google services, along with YouTube Premium.
– Deep Think in Gemini 2.5 Pro: An enhanced reasoning mode currently available to “trusted testers” that allows the model to consider multiple answers before responding, significantly improving performance on complex tasks.
– Gemini Live Expansion: The real-time conversation feature now includes camera and screen-sharing capabilities on both iOS and Android. In the coming weeks, it will integrate more deeply with Google Maps, Calendar, and Tasks.
New Generative AI Tools
Google unveiled several impressive AI models and tools:
– Flow: A new AI-powered video tool geared toward filmmaking, powered by a trio of Google’s AI models — Veo for video generation, Imagen for image generation, and Gemini for text and prompting. Flow allows users to import characters or scenes or create them within the tool, and offers features like camera control, scene building, and asset management tools. The platform also introduces “Flow TV,” a curated stream where users can see the exact prompts behind videos to understand others’ creative processes. Initially available to U.S. users, with Pro subscribers getting 100 generations per month and Ultra users receiving higher limits.
– Veo 3: An advanced video-generating AI that can create not just visuals but also sound effects, background noises, and dialogue, incorporating synchronized audio elements such as dialogue, sound effects, and music. This advancement marks a significant leap in AI video generation, transitioning from silent clips to fully immersive audiovisual experiences. The model excels in simulating real-world physics and motion dynamics, delivering lifelike and immersive video outputs. Veo 3 is currently accessible to U.S. users through the Gemini app, exclusively for subscribers of the AI Ultra plan and powers the new Flow tool.
– Imagen 4: Developed by DeepMind, Imagen 4 delivers exceptional photorealism and fine detail, accurately rendering elements like intricate fabrics, water droplets, and animal fur. A standout improvement is its enhanced typography capabilities, allowing for the generation of legible and precise text within images, ideal for applications such as posters, comics, and slides. The model supports both photorealistic and abstract styles and can produce images up to 2K resolution across various aspect ratios. Imagen 4 is accessible through the Gemini app, Whisk, Vertex AI, and Google Workspace tools like Slides, Docs, and Vids.
– Stitch: An AI-powered tool designed to streamline the process of user interface (UI) design and frontend development. Available through Google Labs, Stitch leverages the capabilities of the Gemini 2.5 Pro model to transform simple text prompts or images into functional UI designs and corresponding code.
– Project Mariner: An AI-powered browser agent developed by DeepMind to automate complex web tasks. Mariner can handle up to 10 tasks simultaneously, such as booking tickets, ordering groceries, or finding job listings, by interacting with websites on your behalf. It operates through a cloud-based virtual browser, allowing users to continue other activities while Mariner works in the background. A notable feature, “Teach and Repeat,” enables Mariner to learn workflows from user demonstrations and replicate them in the future. Currently available to U.S. subscribers of the $249.99/month AI Ultra plan, Mariner’s capabilities are also being integrated into the Gemini app’s upcoming “Agent Mode” and Google’s AI Mode in Search, aiming to streamline everyday tasks through AI-driven automation
– Project Astra: An advanced multimodal AI assistant developed by DeepMind designed to interpret and respond to visual, auditory, and contextual inputs in real time. Astra aims to provide proactive assistance across various tasks. Demonstrations showcased Astra’s capabilities, such as identifying objects through a smartphone camera, retrieving relevant information like repair manuals, and autonomously navigating apps to assist users, for instance, highlighting specific items in a cluttered scene or making calls to inquire about product availability.
Search and Workspace Enhancements
– AI Mode: The experimental Search feature that handles complex, multi-part questions is rolling out to U.S. users this week, with support for sports and finance queries.
– Search Live: Coming later this summer, this feature will allow users to ask questions based on what their phone’s camera sees in real-time.
– Gmail Updates: Personalized smart replies and new inbox-cleaning features are coming to Gmail, which is also the first app to be supported with personalized context.
– Beam 3D Teleconferencing: Previously called Starline, this technology uses a six-camera array and custom light field display to create lifelike 3D meetings with “near-perfect” millimetre-level head tracking.
Developer Tools and OS Updates
– Wear OS 6: Bringing a unified font to tiles for a cleaner app look, with Pixel Watches getting dynamic theming that syncs app colours with watch faces.
– Android Studio: New AI features including “Journeys,” an “agentic AI” capability, and an “Agent Mode” to handle intricate development processes.
– Google Play Updates: New tools for handling subscriptions, topic pages for specific interests, audio samples for app previews, and a streamlined checkout experience.
With over 400 million monthly active users on its Gemini apps and an ever-expanding ecosystem of AI-powered features, Google’s vision for the future is becoming increasingly clear: ambient computing powered by sophisticated AI that can see, hear, and act on our behalf.
Microsoft Build 2025: Windows as the Ultimate AI Platform
Microsoft’s flagship developer conference took place on May 20, showcasing the company’s vision for the future of software development with a strong focus on artificial intelligence and developer tools. The Redmond giant emphasized its commitment to making Windows the ultimate platform for AI-powered development by blending cloud, edge, and local computing capabilities.
Windows AI Foundry: Comprehensive AI Developer Platform
The most significant announcement from Build 2025 was the introduction of Windows AI Foundry, an evolution of Windows Copilot Runtime designed to streamline AI development from start to finish. This all-in-one platform supports developers throughout the entire process, from selecting and fine-tuning models to deploying them efficiently on Windows devices.
Key components of Windows AI Foundry include:
– Windows ML: An in-built AI inference runtime optimized for CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs, developed in collaboration with leading silicon partners including Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm.
– Pre-optimized Model Integration: Seamless integration with models like Foundry Local, Ollama, and NVIDIA NIMs, giving developers instant access to ready-to-use open source models optimized for Windows devices.
– AI APIs: A suite of APIs powered by the inbox models available on Copilot+ PCs.
– LoRA Support: Implementation of Low Rank Adaptation (LoRA) to support fine-tuning of built-in large language models.
Advancing Agentic AI
Microsoft is pushing forward the future of AI agents with the introduction of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standardized framework that enables AI agents to interact natively with Windows applications. This protocol allows apps to expose specific functions for agents, enhancing their capabilities and enabling seamless AI-powered workflows across the Windows ecosystem.
App Actions: Boosting Discoverability
To help developers grow and engage their user base, Microsoft announced App Actions for Windows. This feature allows developers to add actions tied to specific app functionality, making it easier for users to discover and interact with apps. Several companies are already implementing this functionality, including Zoom, Filmora, and Todoist.
AI Dominates the Tech Landscape
As both Google I/O and Microsoft Build 2025 demonstrate, artificial intelligence has become the central focus of the tech industry’s biggest players. While their approaches differ somewhat—Google emphasizing consumer-facing AI tools and Microsoft focusing on empowering developers to build AI-integrated experiences—both companies are racing to create more capable, accessible AI systems that seamlessly blend into our digital lives.
The technologies showcased this week will likely shape how we interact with our devices, productivity tools, and creative applications for years to come. As these AI capabilities become more ambient and proactive, the line between human and machine assistance continues to blur, promising a future where technology adapts to our needs rather than the other way around.
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