Google is holding an event about search and AI on February 8th

Google is about to share more about its work in artificial intelligence. Next week, Google will be holding an event about how it’s “using the power of AI to reimagine how people search for, explore and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need,” according to an invite sent to The Verge. The 40-minute event will be streamed on YouTube on February 8th at 8:30AM ET.

The timing of the event is interesting given that Google CEO Sundar Pichai just announced that the company is planning on letting people “interact directly” with its “newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search” soon. Google, long the de facto way to find information on the internet, is likely facing some pressure from Microsoft, which is reportedly planning on integrating ChatGPT into Bing. That could allow Bing to offer more intelligent summaries and results, which is something that Google has struggled with.

Of course, it’s very possible the presentation will be more about tools we’re already familiar with; the invitation contains references to Google Lens, Translate, Shopping, and Maps. It’d be hard to complain if the show is just about small improvements to those tools, as those can make a big difference for some of the millions of people who use them a day.