Earlier this month, Google announced it would be canceling the in-person portion of its annual I/O conference this year in order to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. But now that California is on a state-wide lockdown and no one seems to know what’s gonna happen next, Google has taken the difficult step of canceling I/O 2020 entirely, including the livestream.
The company released a statement on the I/O website.
Out of concern for the health and safety of our developers, employees, and local communities — and in line with recent “shelter in place” orders by the local Bay Area counties — we sadly will not be holding I/O in any capacity this year.
Right now, the most important thing all of us can do is focus our attention on helping people with the new challenges we all face. Please know that we remain committed to finding other ways to share platform updates with you through our developer blogs and community forums.
Take care of yourselves. We’ll continue to do everything we can to help our communities stay safe, informed, and connected.
With no I/O event at all, it isn’t clear how Google will handle any announcements it planned on making at the conference. My guess would be the company’s various blog platforms where the company has been known to make some big announcements without setting a stage or going live on YouTube. It’s still unfortunate, though, since Google’s pretty good at product demonstrations, especially when it comes to the Google Assistant.
The May 12th – 14th dates are likely when we can expect Google’s flurry of announcements that were supposed to take place during I/O. However, anything and everything could change behind the scenes, so we’ll have to wait it out to see what happens. Stay tuned.
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