- TechRadar readers voted on what they were excited to see at Google I/O
- Two-thirds had their wishes fulfilled, but a couple were missed
- There were no updates on the next Google Home or Googlebook speaker
Before CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage at Google I/O 2026, excitement levels were already rising for what could be announced, launched, or demonstrated at the developer conference.
According to the results of a survey of which of the five most rumored Google products and services TechRadar readers were excited about at the keynote, 73% saw what they wanted, with the launch of Android XR smart glasses, the unveiling of a personal AI agent, and several Gemini Intelligence demos.
But despite rumors circulating about the upcoming Google Home speaker and it already being announced that the Googlebook could be on demo to show off more AI use cases being implemented, none of them were mentioned.
You can see the results of the survey below; Just keep in mind that the majority of the votes were obtained through our TechRadar WhatsApp channel (if you’re not already following us on the messaging app, be sure to follow the latest news, polls and reviews).
Which Google I/O announcements were the most hyped?
Google made 100 announcements at I/O, but the most notable one for consumers was the slew of new Gemini-powered features coming to its products and services, something that was already largely expected based on the survey results.
Given that almost every company is now working with AI (to be clear, I’m not talking about the theoretical version of the word, but rather machine learning, language model learning (LLM), and automations), it’s not too surprising that this was the focus for most of the two-hour keynote.
We’d already seen the reveal of Gemini Intelligence at the Android Show a week earlier, so the unveiling of Google’s 24/7 personal AI agent, Gemini Spark, was already high on the list of tech fans, especially since there were rumors of an always-on assistant called Remy in the making.
Despite the expectations surrounding the announcement of an AI agent, the most anticipated technology reveal of Google I/O according to our surveys was the Android XR smart glasses, which had a total of 303 votes from readers. We’d already seen a lot about these new wearables when testing prototypes, which made their arrival (frankly) late and a little disappointing because Google forgot to tell us when they’ll be released or how much they’ll cost.
What about the next Google Home speaker and Googlebooks?
Now, what about the quarter of respondents who were excited to hear more details about the new class of “designed for Gemini Intelligence” laptops called Googlebooks and the upcoming Google Home speaker?
Neither product appeared during the show, even though both have already been announced. But then again, Google I/O tends to be about software developments rather than hardware, although we did get our first look at Samsung’s Android XR smart glasses.
There is a chance that we could hear more about these products at the upcoming ‘Made By Google’ hardware event, which took place in August last year. That’s more likely for Googlebooks, as that would line up perfectly with Google saying they’ll arrive sometime “in the fall.”
On the other hand, given that Google Home’s new flagship speaker is set to launch sometime next week, according to the latest update we received on the matter, it’s not entirely clear when we’ll hear more about its pricing and availability.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for any news on the Google Home speaker and Googlebooks, so be sure to follow us on Google News for the latest news.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to receive news, reviews and opinions from our experts in your feeds.
