Bots Bring Bigger Challenge to Google's Ad Model Than Phones Did

The smartphone boom upended Google's advertising profit engine and it took years for the Internet giant to adjust to the new mobile world. The next wave of computing will be an even bigger challenge. At Google's I/O developer conference this week near its Silicon Valley headquarters, the company unveiled new technology that will rely less and less on physical devices with screens to deliver information and services to consumers. Google hopes these advances will capture the human attention its business depends upon, and then it can figure out how to make money later, one executive said. Google Home will sit in living rooms sucking in voice-based queries and delivering verbal answers from an artificially intelligent "Google assistant."