Google is playing defense instead of setting the agenda
The star of the show this year was Google Home, a sleek, me-too version of the Amazon Echo product. Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted as much on stage, and in an interview with CNET in which he credited Amazon for being first to "point the way."
Google Assistant: First came Apple's Siri, then came Amazon's Alexa. And now Google has released its version of a virtual assistant to help you get things done.
That's not to downplay Google's pioneering work in artificial intelligence and speech recognition, the technological underpinnings that make its Assistant service possible. That behind-the-scenes technology could turn out to be the secret sauce that allows Google's virtual assistant to succeed where Apple's Siri has struggled.
But again, the consumer-facing implementation is clearly inspired by Apple and Amazon. And there's no denying that Google needs its new Assistant service to help its business adapt to a world where consumers don't necessarily visit a web search engine to get information.
Then there's Allo, Google's new messaging app. As Facebook Messenger and a slew of other chat apps, from Slack to Kik, are gaining momentum, Google can't afford to sit still. Although Google's Hangouts app was once considered cutting edge, the company is now playing catch up. Hello Allo.
The flip side of Allo is Duo, a new video calling app that Google unveiled. Most people referred to it as Google's Apple FaceTime competitor.
Google also touted a new virtual reality headset design that will be coming out soon. It's the next evolution of its Cardboard VR viewer, launched a couple of years ago, but the idea is that any manufacturer will be able to build a headset based on Google's new Daydream design. The resulting headsets sounds roughly similar to the Samsung Gear VR headset. And not nearly as powerful as the Facebook-owned Oculus Rift.