Google confirms new Google Assistant product announcements coming at I/O 2021

Thanks to a post yesterday over at the official Google Developers Blog, we can feel quite certain that at least some of the ‘significant product updates and announcements’ Sundar Pichai referenced in the earnings call earlier this week will be Google Assistant and smart home related and will happen at the Day 2 Google I/O keynote. While this doesn’t mean smart home gadgets will be the only announcements Google has to share, it does at least have us wondering exactly what in Google’s home lineup we could see refreshed when I/O happens in just 18 days.

We’ll kick off news from Assistant with our keynote session, which will be livestreamed on May 19th at 9:45am PST. Expect to hear about what’s happened in Assistant over the past year, new product announcements, feature updates, and tooling changes.

In celebration of Google Assistant’s 5th birthday, we’ll share our Smart Home journey and the things we’ve learned along the way. We’ll also dive into product vision, new product announcements, and showcase great Assistant experiences built by our developer community. Catch the Smart Home keynote on May 19th at 4:15pm PST.

via the Google Developers Blog

Since we just had a refreshed Nest Hub and the recently-launched Nest Audio, this has us very curious exactly what Google has planned. As I said in regards to Sundar Pichai’s comments about ‘significant product updates and announcements’ at I/O, I’m really unsure what we could end up seeing. While I’d love to see a new replacement for the amazing Google Home Max, I just don’t know that the market is there for it. Could a Nest Hub Max refresh be on the way? Or is there a totally new Google Assistant device on the way that we’ve not even considered?

Google is pretty terrible at keeping things under wraps, so if they have hardware that they’ve managed to keep a lid on for this long, I’d be incredibly impressed. They clearly have some stuff to show off, and perhaps some of that new stuff will be partner products made in conjunction with other companies and that’s why none of it is on the radar right now. Or, maybe Google finally figured out how to keep their news clamped down and they really do have a few big surprises up their sleeves. Regardless, I’m getting pretty excited for whatever shows up at the conference in under 3 weeks. I/O is always an awesome showcase for what Google is up to, and it feels like it might just be a bit extra-special this year. We’ll know soon enough.

VIA: Android Authority