AI Is Becoming Ambient: My Biggest Takeaway From Google I/O 2026

neither galax — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:12:02 +0000

This is a submission for the Google I/O Writing Challenge

I spent some time watching the Google I/O 2026 “What’s New in AI” session, and one small detail personally stood out to me.

One of the presenters was Paige Bailey. Years ago, I used to watch her GenAI workshops on Kaggle while learning AI on my own. Seeing her present at Google I/O felt like a reminder of how quickly this space has evolved.

But beyond the announcements themselves, I think the biggest message from Google I/O was this:

AI is no longer being treated as a standalone product.
It’s becoming ambient infrastructure.

AI is becoming ambient

What stood out to me most was how deeply AI is now integrated across Google’s ecosystem.

Search, Workspace, Android, Chrome, YouTube, developer tools — AI is quietly being embedded everywhere.

Not as a separate chatbot tab, but as an invisible layer sitting behind the products people already use every day.

AI is becoming ambient.

Multimodal AI is becoming the default

Another thing that stood out was how natural multimodal interaction now feels.

Text, voice, images, video, screen understanding, and real-time context are all starting to blend together into a single experience.

Instead of switching between different tools, the AI increasingly understands multiple forms of input at once.

That feels like a major UX shift.

The Shift Toward “Agentic” AI

Another word that repeatedly appeared during the presentations was “agentic.”

The industry is clearly moving away from AI that simply answers questions toward AI that can actually perform tasks, make decisions, and operate across tools.

That shift feels important.

The conversation is no longer:

“Can AI chat with you?”

Now it’s:

“Can AI do things for you?”

Google Search is long gone

One thing became very obvious during the demos:

The old version of Google Search is quietly disappearing.

Typing keywords and manually digging through links is slowly being replaced by AI-generated summaries, conversational search, and agents that help organize information for you.

Whether that change is good or bad is still open for debate, especially for creators and websites across the internet.

But the direction feels clear.

Comparing Google with OpenAI and Anthropic

What’s interesting is how differently each company seems to be approaching AI.

Google still feels strongest in consumer AI momentum and product experience.

It has built a strong reputation around reasoning quality and safety-focused systems.

But it may have the biggest advantage in ecosystem integration.

Google already owns platforms used by billions of people daily:

Search
Android
YouTube
Chrome
Workspace

That means AI can spread across everyday life extremely fast.

And after watching Google I/O, it feels like that’s exactly where things are heading.

🌱One Commit at a Time -- My Open Source Journey

neither galax — Tue, 19 May 2026 18:55:21 +0000

For the last two months, I’ve been showing up to open source every single day.

Not because I’m an expert.
Not because I already know everything.
And definitely not because every contribution is impressive.

I started this challenge on April 1st with one simple rule:

Contribute to open source every day for 1 year

That's it.

Some days it’s a pull request.
Some days it’s documentation.
Some days it’s reviewing code, helping discussions, fixing typos, testing things, or simply learning a codebase deeply enough to leave a useful comment.

The goal isn’t perfection.

The goal is consistency.

Why I Started This Challenge

I’m a self-taught developer learning AI, engineering, and open source through real-world building and collaboration.

Over time, I noticed a pattern in how I approached open source and contributing. Even after using GitHub for around five years, I still had what I can only describe as “git anxiety” — hesitation around commits, branches, and contributing in unfamiliar repositories. Not because I didn’t understand the tools, but because I hadn’t built enough repetition for them to feel natural.

My contribution history also reflected that. For years, it was inconsistent — periods of activity followed by long gaps. That stop-and-go pattern made it harder to build confidence, momentum, or a real sense of progress.

At the same time, I had a clear long-term goal:
getting involved in a major open source project.

To get there, I realized I needed more than just technical knowledge. I needed comfort with the workflow itself — Git, collaboration patterns, reviews, and the daily rhythm of real projects.

I also noticed something more general about how people approach open source, myself included: there’s often a belief that we need to “be ready first” before contributing.

"I need to become better first."
"I need to understand the entire codebase."
"I need to build something significant before I start."

But open source rarely works like that.

The people who grow in these spaces are usually the ones who stay present — consistently showing up, even in small ways.

So instead of waiting for a perfect moment or chasing large contributions immediately, I decided to shift my focus entirely toward building a habit:

show up daily, contribute publicly, and learn in the open.

I want to paint my contribution graph into all green this year...

What Counts as a Contribution?

A contribution doesn’t always mean shipping a major feature.

For this challenge, I define contribution broadly:

Writing or improving documentation
Reviewing pull requests
Opening issues
Participating in discussions
Reproducing bugs
Improving examples
Learning and documenting insights publicly
Working on my own repositories
Supporting community conversations

Even small actions help projects move forward.

And honestly, smaller contributions are often the best way to start.

My Daily System

I keep the process intentionally simple.

Usually it looks like this:

Open GitHub
Continue previous work or find one thing to improve
Spend 30–60 minutes contributing
Log the progress publicly

That’s all.

The simplicity matters because I want this challenge to survive busy days, low-energy days, and difficult weeks.

Consistency beats intensity.

What I’ve Been Doing So Far

Over the past two months, my days have included things like:

contributing to open source repositories
improving documentation and learning materials
exploring AI agent frameworks and tooling
building my own projects publicly
learning collaboration workflows through GitHub

A lot of the work is small.
Some of it is invisible.
But all of it compounds.

And that’s the point.

The Bigger Goal

This challenge isn’t only about GitHub streaks.

It’s about becoming the kind of engineer who can contribute meaningfully over the long term.

Right now, I’m still exploring different projects and communities.
Over time, I want to deepen my involvement, contribute more substantially, and eventually become a trusted contributor within projects I care about.

Not overnight.
One step at a time.

What I’ll Share Here

I’ll be documenting this journey regularly on dev.to throughout the year.

That includes:

Lessons from open source contributions
Things I learned while building AI and developer tools
mistakes and challenges
contribution workflows
beginner-friendly insights
thoughts about consistency, learning, and engineering growth

I want this series to be honest and practical — not just highlight reels.

If You’ve Been Hesitating to Start

You do not need to be an expert to contribute.

You only need to begin.

Open source can feel intimidating at first:
large repositories, unfamiliar workflows, experienced maintainers, complex codebases.

But contribution is a skill like anything else.
You improve by participating.

Even one thoughtful comment or documentation fix matters.

Join Me

If you’re also learning in public, contributing to open source, or trying to build consistency as a developer, feel free to join me.

Start small.
Show up consistently.
Document the journey.

One commit at a time. 🚀

Forem: neither galax