Newsletter 
Every year, Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin put out a pretty lengthy letter talking about what they think the future has in store for them. This year is a bit different, seeing as the company split up into Alphabet and Sundar Pichai was named Google CEO. So this letter is mostly from Sundar Pichai and not Page and Brin. But it’s still the same bit as vague as usual and has all sorts of great topics to talk about here.
When it comes to Android and Virtual Reality, Pichai starts with the fact that “just a decade ago, computing was still synonymous with big computers that sat on our desks”. My how things have changed in a short decade, right? Now processors, and other sensors in computers have become so small that computers can fit in the palm of your hand and are on our wrists. Pichai states that Android has over 1.4 billion 30-day active devices, and it’s steadily growing. Pichai says that going into the future, the next big step is for the concept of the “device” to simply fade away. And that AI is the future of the computer, and it’ll help you through your day.
On the cloud front, Google is hoping that enterprise services will be the next big business for Google after search and ads. Pichai also thinks that machine learning is going to be the big differentiator here for the company, when compared to their competitors.
Pichai still sees search and ads as the core of Google, which isn’t a surprise considering it’s the main source of revenue for Google. He also notes that its the key competitive edge for Google. The next step here is “Search and Assistance”. Stating that you “should be able to move seamlessly across Google services in a natural way and get assistance that understands your context, situation, and needs.” And that’s where AI comes into play. While Google is the leader in search with very little competition. It’s quite different in the world of assistance. Apple, Amazon and Facebook are all competing with Google on this front.
AI seems to be the future here, but Pichai hasn’t said much about it in the founders letter this time around – possibly to keep their work a secret. But he does mention that Google is very good at AI.
There’s plenty more in Pichai’s lengthy Founder’s Letter, which you can find at the source link below. There’s some really interesting thoughts there from Pichai. But it’s clear that the future for Google is in a few different categories. With Android and Virtual Reality being the next step right now. But AI is also another big area for Google and other tech companies to dabble into. Seeing the Cloud become Google’s “core” in the future would be interesting, but not surprising.