Google CEO pitches dystopia where no one communicates with their friends anymore because AI's writing our emails, claims this makes you 'a better friend'
AI is also behind "a total reimagining of search."
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)
CEO of Alphabet and Google Sundar Pichai gave the opening address at the 17th annual Google I/O developer conference this Tuesday, and used the opportunity to get all starry-eyed, and slightly dystopian, about the future of AI.
"We are shipping faster than ever," said Pichai (thanks, TheRegister). "We have announced over a dozen models and research breakthroughs and released over 20 major AI products and features, all since the last I/O… today, Gemini 2.5 Pro sweeps the LLMArena leaderboard in all categories."
Gemini is now so core to Google's business that it's replacing traditional search. If you use any of Google's suite of products you'll have noticed the inexorable push of Gemini features into everything. It feels a bit like a very needy child (or the spawn of a tech company desperate to goose the "engagement" numbers).
Pichai went on to talk about some genuinely impressive use cases for AI integration, with its Project Starline technology being used to offer bi-directional language translation voiced by AI-generated speech in real time. English and Spanish translation is now available for Meet subscribers, with support for more languages rolling out over the coming months.
Then we get to a more questionable use case, which is all about further personalising AI. "We are working to bring this to life with something we call Personal Context," said Pichai. "With your permission, Gemini models can use relevant context across your Google Apps, in a way that is private, transparent and fully under your control."
The initial manifestations of this idea are the little automated replies that Google offers up across services such as Gmail. Google calls these Personalized Smart Replies, and is aiming to make them much more detailed and capable of replacing actual human-to-human communication.
"Let's say my friend wrote to me looking for advice," said Pichai. "He's taking a road trip to Utah and he remembers I did this trip before. Now if I'm being honest, I'd probably reply with something short and unhelpful. Sorry, Felix. But with Personalized Smart Replies, I can be a better friend. That's because Gemini can do almost all the work for me, looking up my notes in Drive, scanning past emails for reservations, finding my itinerary in Google Docs: trip to Zion National Park.
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"Gemini matches my typical greetings from past emails, captures my tone, style, and favorite word choices, and then it automatically generates a reply."
I'm not disputing that automated replies can be useful in certain contexts such as basic business communication. But even as someone who is generally terrible at replying to people I cannot imagine just giving up on that side of my personal life and leaving it to AI. I don't really think you're someone's friend, at that point.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. (Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
I mean, where does this end up? We'll have AI managing all of our relationships and communication, and AIs replying to AIs, which just seems like Google is actually devaluing human communication rather than enabling it. I don't want to delegate my social life and relationships to an algorithm: maybe the Luddites had a point.
The Personal Context feature will roll out for Gmail subscribers this summer.
Equally troubling, in a different and perhaps larger way, is Google's new "AI Mode" in Google Search. This has launched, initially as a setting in Google Labs, and Google is being coy about the potential impact on every single online company that depends on Google for traffic referrals.
"For those who want an end-to-end AI search experience we are introducing an all- new AI mode," said Pichai. "It's a total reimagining of search." AI mode will begin as a new tab in the Search window, integrating with Gemini 2.5 and Personal Context (once launched).
Finally, among the many AI product announcements, Pichai at least showed that someone at Google has a sense of humour. As well as cramming AI in everywhere it can, it's also announced the launch of SynthID Detector: a website that helps us identify when content is AI-generated. I wonder if you can whack emails from your friends in there.
Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."
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