Google’s ‘world-model’ bet: building the AI operating layer before Microsoft captures the UI

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More After three hours at Google’s I/O 2025 event last week in Silicon Valley, it became increasingly clear: Google is rallying its formidable AI efforts – prominently branded under the Gemini name but encompassing a diverse range of underlying model architectures and research – with laser focus. It is releasing a slew of innovations and technologies around it, then integrating them into products at a breathtaking pace. Beyond headline-grabbing features, Google laid out a bolder ambition: an operating system for the AI age – not the disk-booting kind, but a logic layer every app could tap – a “world model” meant to power a universal assistant that understands our physical surroundings, and reasons and acts on our behalf. It’s a strategic offensive that many observers may have missed amid the bamboozlement of features. On one hand, it’s a high-stakes strategy to l ... Read full article.