Dive Brief:

• Google unveiled a line of artificial intelligence-based tools and products for its cloud platform Wednesday at the 2016 Google Cloud Platform Next conference in San Francisco.
• Its Cloud Machine Learning products will allow data scientists and developers to build intelligent applications and employ deep learning techniques. Its new tools also offer pre-trained machine learning models, like Google Translate API, which can translate more than 80 languages. 
• Google's technology powers application like Google Now, Google Photos, voice recognition and its Smart Reply in Inbox. 

Dive Insight:

The company made a slew of announcements at the conference Wednesday. Diane Greene, Google’s head of cloud computing, argued that Google's cloud platform can offer more flexible tools and options than its primary competitors, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. 

Through advanced tools and machine learning capabilities, Google is trying to attract the attention of developers who might not normally have access to such powerful technology. As Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. said during the keynote, machine learning is "what's next," TechCrunch reported. 

This is not the first time that Schmidt has boasted of the potential for artificial intelligence. In January, Schmidt said scientists and developers could use the technology to solve the world's "hard problems," working on challenges like "population growth, climate change, human development and education." 

Google is also boosting its Big Data and analytics tools, which allows more productive and insightful development of applications, the company said. Harnessing consumer data, companies can develop applications based on consumer insights, the company said, which can take some of the guesswork out of new applications.