Google CEO Sundar Pichai talks about Google Lens, which lets you point your phone's camera at places and objects to get information about them. On Wednesday, Google kicked off its I/O developers conference with a keynote providing a peek into what the tech giant has planned for its range of services, including its artificial intelligence-powered Google Assistant. Here's what we learned from the first day of I/O: The company wants to make it easier for search users to discover job postings. Welcome to Google for Jobs, which will organize job listings more efficiently. So, if you search for, say, a software engineering job in a specific city, those listings pop up right at the top of search results.

If you are lost, you ask Siri for directions. No need to pick up the phone, there's a Domino's Pizza bot that will calm your grumbling stomach. Wondering if you need an umbrella before you leave the house? Ask Alexa about the weather (and if you don't have an umbrella, just ask Alexa to order you one). We are used to interacting with conversational agents in our personal lives, depending on them to execute the mundane tasks that we were required to do ourselves in the past.

But when I/O kicks off this Wednesday, expect Google's latest artificial intelligence efforts to be what everyone ends up talking about. If you've been paying attention over the last year or so, you've noticed that Google seems especially passionate about AI, injecting it into everything from search results to chat apps to the new Google Assistant for Android phones and the Google Home speaker. CEO Sundar Pichai has sounded especially bullish on the prospects for AI on recent company earnings calls and public interviews. That was just the beginning. Internally, Google sees AI as its next major platform after search and Android -- and it wants to give developers a way to get in early.

Google announced Wednesday it was bringing its digital assistant to Apple iPhones as part of its effort to win the battle with tech rivals on artificial intelligence. At its annual developers conference at an outdoor concert-venue near its main campus in Mountain View, California, Google unveiled its vision for computing centered around artificial intelligence. "We are now witnessing a new shift in computing: the move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said during an opening presentation. "It is forcing us to reimagine our products for a world that allows a more natural, seamless way of interacting with technology." Those interactions, for Google, include using artificial intelligence to let people engage computers conversationally, have software anticipate needs, and let smartphone cameras "recognize" what they see.

Google on Wednesday revealed several new updates for its most popular hardware and services as part of its annual I/O conference. While the developer-centric event has historically focused on Google products like Android and Chrome, this year's announcements revolved mainly around the search giant's advancements in artificial intelligence, or AI. That's been a common theme among Silicon Valley's top companies lately, setting up AI as the next big tech battleground. The smart speaker battle is heating up: Just days after Amazon revealed a new Echo device with a screen, Google announced a slew of new capabilities for its own connected speaker, the Home. The most significant upgrade is that Home users will be able to make hands-free phone calls through the device.

Google Assistant can now give you step-by-step instructions in the kitchen. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Google Assistant can now give you step-by-step instructions in the kitchen.

USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham says Google Home is improved but is still a work in progress with some gaping holes. LOS ANGELES -- Google announced new features for its Google Home personal assistant product Wednesday, with one key catch-up to rival Amazon -- free phone calls to the United States and Canada mobile and landline phones. Google Home, which is a distant No. 2 in the personal digital assistant speaker market to Amazon's Echo speaker line, announced many new tools for the Home that tap into the Google Assistant. The assistant is Google's answer to Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Samsung's Bixby and looks to use voice computing for both search and daily tasks. In Google's vision of the utopian world, we would use Google Home to answer basic search questions.

Google Home's voice platform will soon be supported by some LG smart appliances. Today, as part of the search giant's I/O 2017 developers conference, LG revealed that its Signature-branded washing machines, dryers, fridges, ovens and air purifiers are getting a Google Assistant update later this month in the US. This means you'll be able to use voice commands to do things like tell your fridge to make more ice, or get real-time air quality updates from your air purifier. LG says these kind of features are also coming to its connected air conditioners and robotic vacuums, such as the Hom-Bot Turbo, adding that the goal is to make even more appliances compatible with Google Assistant down the road.

Google provided a look at its latest digital offerings, with a heavy focus on its efforts to extend artificial intelligence features into more of its apps and services. CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled Google Lens, a set of vision-based computing capabilities that can understand what you are looking at. It will first be available as part of Google's voice-controlled digital assistant -- which bears the straightforward name "Google Assistant" -- and Photos app. In the real world, that means you could, for instance, point your phone camera at a restaurant and get reviews for it. Pinterest has a similar tool.

Google Home is barely six months old, and Google is piling on new features. On Wednesday at its I/O developer conference in Mountain View, the company announced upgrades focused on personalizing your interactions and making them hands-free. Presented by Rishi Chandra, Google's Vice President for Home Products, the new features leapfrog Amazon's popular Echo assistant in some ways, while in other ways Google is just catching up. "A phone call is still the easiest way" to communicate with others, Chandra said, as he announced the availability of hands-free calling for Google Home. "Just ask the Google assistant to make the call and we can connect you to any land or cell line in the U.S. or Canada completely free," he said.