Google Project Astra hands-on: Full of potential, but it’s going to be a while

At I/O 2024, Google’s teaser for Project Astra gave us a glimpse at where AI assistants are going in the future. It’s a multi-modal feature that combines the smarts of Gemini with the kind of image recognition abilities you get in Google Lens, as well as powerful natural language responses. However, while the promo video was slick, after getting to try it out in person, it's clear there’s a long way to go before something like Astra lands on your phone. So here are three takeaways from our first experience with Google’s next-gen AI.