Google CEO Sundar Pichai redefines the future of work at Google I/O conference

Google CEO Sundar Pichai laid down a detailed roadmap on how the future of work will unfold for millions across the globe. Kicking off the I/O Developers Conference from the Mountain View campus, Pichai said that COVID-19 has deeply affected the entire global community over the past year and continues to take a toll.

He said, "Places such as Brazil, and my home country of India, are now going through their most difficult moments of the pandemic yet. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by COVID and we are all hoping for better days ahead".

Pichai said that the company continues to build a more helpful Google, for everyone. "One of the biggest ways we can help is by reimagining the future of work. Over the last year, we've seen work transform in unprecedented ways, as offices and coworkers have been replaced by kitchen countertops and pets," he noted.

Pichai told the virtual audiences, "Many companies, including ours, will continue to offer flexibility even when it's safe to be in the same office again. Collaboration tools have never been more critical, and today we announced a new smart canvas experience in Google Workspace that enables even richer collaboration.” He also said that there are 150 million students and educators learning virtually over the last year with Google Classroom.

Stressing on the role of AI, Pichai said that the company has used the technology to improve the core Search experience for people by taking a huge leap forward in a computer's ability to process natural language.

He then introduced the latest research in natural language understanding: LaMDA. LaMDA is a language model for dialogue applications. It's open domain, which means it is designed to converse on any topic. "We're focused on ensuring LaMDA meets our incredibly high standards on fairness, accuracy, safety and privacy, and that it is developed consistently with our AI Principles," he said.