Nowadays Google has two major events which take place each year. While the latter is now the sum of Google’s hardware department, with a number of hardware devices (Pixel, Google Home, Chromecast, and so on) being announced, the earlier event is usually much more software-focused. This is of course, Google’s yearly I/O conference. While this is primarily a conference designed with developers in mind, it does also prove useful in providing a number of Android-related announcements for the general public, quite often including new software products and major updates. Last year for instance, saw the Xiaomi Mi Box, Google Assistant, and Google Home, (among other things) all announced, while the year before saw the introduction of Android Pay and Google Photos (among other things). Go back a year before that and I/O 2014 was a fairly big year for Android with a number of major announcements taking place. Such as the introduction of Android Auto, Android One, Android TV, as well as the first proper demoing of Android Wear.
While it is difficult to know whether this year’s event is going to be as revealing as that 2014 event was, there are certainly some aspects that will be discussed. In no particular order, you can expect more details on Google Assistant to be given, as well as Google’s wider artificial intelligence ambitions. Likewise, Android O will be on the agenda, and will likely form the basis of the majority of the announcements that come through over the next few days. The two Rs (VR and AR) are also likely to be talked about to some degree, as will Chromebooks and their ever-increasing Android app compatibility. There will also be much more or course, including a high likelihood of a few surprise announcements too.
Either way, and regardless of what is announced at Google I/O 2017, the keynote is normally where most of the major announcements are made. As for this year’s keynote, that is due to start very soon and you can watch the whole thing unfold, as as it happens, below. As is usually the case with the Google I/O keynote, this is going to be a rather long session and so you will want to get yourself comfortable. The keynote begins at 10AM PT (1PM ET) and will likely go on until around 12PM PT (3PM ET).