Google's most powerful AI tools aren't for us

At I/O 2025, nothing Google showed off felt new. Instead, we got a retread of the company's familiar obsession with its own AI prowess. For the better part of two hours, Google spent playing up products like AI Mode , generative AI apps like Jules and Flow , and a bewildering new $250 per month AI Ultra plan . During Tuesday's keynote, I thought a lot about my first visit to Mountain View in 2018. I/O 2018 was different. Between Digital Wellbeing for Android, an entirely redesigned Maps app and even Duplex , Google felt like a company that had its pulse on what people wanted from technology. In fact, later that same year, my co-worker Cherlynn Low penned a story titled How Google won software in 2018 . "Companies don't often make features that are truly helpful, but in 2018, Google proved its software can change your life," she wrote at the time, referencing the Pixel 3's Call Screening and "magical" Night Sight features. What announcement from Google I/O 2025 comes even close to Nig ... Read full article.