Google just revealed that its annual developer conference, I/O, will be returning to the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, on May 10. Like last year’s event, the in-person event is set to be fairly intimate, though the company will be streaming the keynotes for free. In pre-pandemic years, I/O was a large event with multiple days of keynotes and workshops.
This scaled-down event appears to be largely focused on public-facing talks, which bring key updates to Google’s various operating systems like Android and Wear OS. AI has been a cornerstone of the show as well in recent years, and given all of the hype we’ve seen for services like ChatGPT and Google’s own Bard, I’d say there’s a good chance the company will be leaning even more strongly on the category at this year’s event.
Hardware, on the other hand, has always been a bit of a crapshoot. The budget Pixel 7a appears to be looming on the horizon, and Google didn’t offer much in the way of Nest smartphone hardware in H2 of last year, so that’s also a possibility.
Google notes,
This year’s event will be broadcast in front of a limited live audience and is open to everyone online on May 10, 2023. Tune in to the livestreamed keynotes, then dive into technical content and learning material on demand. Registration begins March 7 and is free of cost.
Along with livestreams, the company will also be making talks available on demand after the fact. The full schedule of events is still TBD.