The I/O 2026 keynote carried the product news, but Google also ran a Dialogues stage where leaders, scientists and creators debated where the technology is heading. A May 22 recap collected the highlights from six sessions.
Beyond the Keynote
Sundar Pichai sat down with Matt Berman, creator and founder of Future Forward, to unpack the thinking behind I/O’s biggest announcements. The conversation framed the event as a shift from assistant-style AI toward systems that act.
Agents and Productivity
Google’s Josh Woodward, Koray Kavukcuoglu, Liz Reid and Jeff Dean joined Logan Kilpatrick for a session on proactive AI agents and what they mean for productivity. The panel described agents less as chatbots and more as background workers that research, plan and complete multi-step tasks on a user’s behalf.
Quantum Meets AI
Hartmut Neven and James Manyika explored how quantum computing and AI might accelerate each other. The pairing reflects Google’s long-running investment in quantum hardware and its hope that AI can help design better quantum algorithms.
AI for Science
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told Axios journalist Mike Allen that AI’s most important near-term contribution may be scientific, compressing decades of discovery into years. He pointed to protein structure prediction and materials research as early proof points.
Robotics and Embodied AI
Kanishka Rao of Google DeepMind and Alberto Rodriguez of Boston Dynamics discussed the leap in embodied physical AI with NothingButTech’s Jacklyn Dallas. The session focused on how foundation models are starting to give robots general-purpose reasoning.
Creativity and Storytelling
Director Doug Liman joined 30 Ninjas’ Jed Weintrob and Julina Tatlock in conversation with Google’s Mira Lane about AI’s role in cinematic storytelling. The panel weighed new creative capability against questions of authorship and craft.
What This Means
The Dialogues stage is a signal of intent. Google is positioning itself as a company that wants to shape not just the models but the social, scientific and creative questions that surround them. The full sessions are available on YouTube.