David Pierce

Editor-at-Large

Google’s ‘universal AI assistant’ prototype can now do stuff for you — and you don’t even have to ask

David PierceMay 20, 2025

Writing code is the killer chatbot app, and Google knows it.

In addition to touting Gemini 2.5 as a coding tool, Google just released a public beta for Jules, a “coding agent” that can work in the background fixing bugs and writing new features in your codebase. It’s a lot like what you can do with GitHub Copilot. Jules can even make an audio summary of its changes — so, a podcast about code commits? Jules has been in Google Labs for a few months, and is free to use during the beta period.

David PierceMay 20, 2025

Project Starline is now Google Beam.

Google’s futuristic conference-calling experiment has been threatening to become commercially available for a while, and Sundar Pichai just said it’s coming this year through devices from HP. And to be fair, “Google Beam” is a less fun but much more Google-y name than Starline.

David PierceMay 20, 2025

A few things to look out for at Google I/O today:

The pre-show musical guest, which in previous years has been fun / totally unhinged.
Any inkling that Google might be making its own smart glasses.
Google’s response to its search antitrust trial — one reason to bet on AI is to try and move beyond whatever the government’s about to do.
Whether Google knows and cares that some people are annoyed by Gemini, or is just going to keep shoving it in our faces.
Sundar Pichai’s outfit. He has a long history of very strong jacket game.