Gemini is taking over Google

At Google’s gadget launch this week, it took almost half an hour before Google actually talked about its new gadgets. There’s a lot to be excited about inside the new Pixel 9 lineup and the Pixel Watch 3, but Google’s event made its true priorities clear. AI matters more to Google than Pixel, more than Android, more than just about anything.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about all of Google’s AI announcements, and what they might mean for how you use your devices going forward. Is this a paradigm shift? Since so much of Google’s focus is on the Pixel’s camera, we also talk about the ongoing “what is a photo” apocalypse, and whether what we’re capturing is even photos anymore.

After that, Nilay tells us about his adventures judging the TV Shootout, which included two days of squinting at incredibly impressive displays trying to figure out which one is truly the best. He learned a lot about how to look at a screen, and about the state of the art in TV tech, and he has lots to share.

Next we run down a bunch of the week’s regulatory news, as Apple continues to pick odd fights with developers and the Epic / Google judge continues to threaten to tear the company apart. It’s remarkable how much the winds have shifted in the Big Tech regulation fight, and it seems change is only going to come faster now.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Google:

And on the TV Shootout:

And on app store regulation:

And in the lightning round: