The Google Assistant was the big news from the company's I/O conference earlier this year, but it took months for Google's true Siri competitor to really arrive. First it was baked into the largely unnecessary Allo chat app, and then it showed up as a flagship feature on the new Pixel phones. Now Google Home is shipping, putting the Assistant a voice command away even when your phone is in your pocket. Its inspiration is obvious: The $129 Home directly takes on the Amazon Echo. Indeed, many of the features here are the same.

At its hardware launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Alphabet showed the sweeping breadth of its ambition to own consumers' personal data, as computing continues to accelerate away from static desktops and screens, coalescing into a cloud of connected devices with the potential to generate far more data -- and data of a far more intimate nature -- than ever before. Along with two new "Google designed" flagship Android smartphones (called Pixel), the first Androids to be preloaded with the company's AI assistant (the Google Assistant) and also including fully unlimited cloud storage to suck users' photos and videos into Google's cloud, there were Google Wifi routers, designed to be bought in bundles to plug all those pesky in-home internet blackspots; the Google Home always listening connected speaker, which is voice-controlled via the Google Assistant and has limited support for third-party IoT devices (such as Philips Hue lightbulbs); an updated Chromecast (the Ultra) to ensure any legacy TV panels are internet-enabled; and Google's less disposable mobile VR play, aka the soft-touch Daydream View headset -- just in case consumer eyeballs seek to stray outside the data-mined smart home by escaping into virtual reality. The scope of Alphabet's ambition for the Google brand is clear: It wants Google's information organizing brain to be embedded right at the domestic center -- i.e. In other words, your daily business is Google's business. "We're moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world," said CEO Sundar Pichai kicking off yesterday's event.

Sometimes, it's the little changes to language that give away a company's ambition. At the unveiling of Google's new Pixel phones yesterday, CEO Sundar Pichai started the event not by talking about what users can get from Google, but what they can get from their Google. Using artificial intelligence and its new digital assistant, said Pichai, Google's computing power will be available in every facet of users' lives. It'll be seamless and pervasive. "Our goal," he said, "is to build a personal Google for each and every user."

Sometimes, it's the little changes to language that give away a company's ambition. At the unveiling of Google's new Pixel phones yesterday, CEO Sundar Pichai started the event not by talking about what users can get from Google, but what they can get from their Google. Using artificial intelligence and its new digital assistant, said Pichai, Google's computing power will be available in every facet of users' lives. It'll be seamless and pervasive. "Our goal," he said, "is to build a personal Google for each and every user." Not a single Google that we all can use, but an individualized Google for everyone.

Google's CEO wants Google to become more than a search engine for everyone -- he wants it to be personalized. Sundar Pichai opened up Google's event Tuesday talking about the history of computing and how it's gotten to where it is today. Specifically, how artificial intelligence is the future of Google and the future of computing in general. "When I look ahead at where computing is headed, it's clear to me that we're moving from a mobile-first to an AI-first world," Pichai said. "Our goal is build a personal Google for each and every user. Just as we built a Google for everyone, we want to build each user his or her own Google."

At its hardware launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Alphabet showed the sweeping breadth of its ambition to own consumers' personal data, as computing continues to accelerate away from static desktops and screens, coalescing into a cloud of connected devices with the potential to generate far more data -- and data of a far more intimate nature -- than ever before. Along with two new'Google designed' flagship Android smartphones (called Pixel), the first Androids to be preloaded with the company's AI assistant (the Google Assistant), and also including fully unlimited cloud storage to suck users' photos and videos into Google's cloud; there were Google Wifi routers, designed to be bought in bundles to plug all those pesky in-home Internet blackspots; the Google Home always listening connected speaker, which is voice controlled via the Google Assistant and has limited support for third party IoT devices (such as Philips Hue lightbulbs); an updated Chromecast (the Ultra) to ensure any legacy TV panels are Internet-enabled; and Google's less disposable mobile VR play, aka the soft-touch Daydream View headset -- just in case consumer eyeballs seek to stray outside the data-mined smart home by escaping into virtual reality. The scope of Alphabet's ambition for the Google brand is clear: it wants Google's information organizing brain to be embedded right at the domestic center -- i.e. In other words, your daily business is Google's business. "We're moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world," said CEO Sundar Pichai kicking off yesterday's event.