**Google IO 2024: The Search Engine Giant Finally Discovers AI Exists, Drops 57 'Game-Changing' Features Nobody Asked For**

Google IO 2024: The Search Engine Giant Finally Discovers AI Exists, Drops 57 ‘Game-Changing’ Features Nobody Asked For

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - In a keynote that felt less like a tech showcase and more like a hostage video where the captor is an overly caffeinated product manager, Google unveiled 57 new AI features yesterday, proving once and for all that they have absolutely zero chill.

The highlight? “Project Astra,” a new assistant that can literally watch you struggle with an IKEA shelf and then send you a passive-aggressive article on “How to Use a Phillips Head Screwdriver.” TL;DR: It’s the virtual version of your dad yelling “READ THE INSTRUCTIONS” from the other room.

But the real gem was “Veo,” Google’s answer to OpenAI’s Sora. It’s a video generator that can create 1080p clips from text. In the demo, they typed “cyberpunk cat overthrowing a government” and got back a 30-second masterpiece with jarring glitches, a cat that suddenly has 7 legs, and a ‘steampunk’ filter that looked suspiciously like a $2 dream sequence filter from 2017. AITA for thinking this is just Sora’s weird, slightly more autistic cousin?

Don’t forget the “Ask Photos” update for Google Photos. You can now type “Show me my cat looking like a potato” and it will find the exact photo from 2019. Underwhelming, yes, but it’s a huge step up from when you had to manually type “cat” and scroll for 7 minutes. Groundbreaking.

And, of course, they spent 20 minutes talking about “AI Overviews” for Search—which is just Google admitting they don’t trust their own algorithm to return relevant links anymore, so they’ll just let a hallucinating robot make sh*t up in a text