New technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and the cloud will play a key role in shaping Google’s future, its CEO Sundar Pichai believes.

Pichai’s comments came in a blog post yesterday that shared the company’s vision of the future with shareholders and the general public.

The blog post was officially Google’s annual “Founder’s Letter”, which has traditionally always been written by its founders (naturally) Larry Page and Sergey Brin. This year though, Page and Brin decided to let Pichai take over the reins, “Since the majority of our big bets are in Google, I wanted to give him most of the bully-pulpit here to reflect on Google’s accomplishments and share his vision.”

Pichai’s post revealed surprisingly little about the specific of Google’s current direction, but said that it does most definitely include AI, mobile and cloud computing.

Indeed, much of Google’s efforts in improving its trademark Search service revolve around its investments in machine learning and AI, Pichai said. The fruits of these technologies can already be seen in relatively new Google services, such as Translate, voice translate and spam filtering.

“We’ve been building the best AI team and tools for years, and recent breakthroughs will allow us to do even more,” Pichai said, citing AlphaGo as one of the new capabilities these technologies helped Google to create.

Google wants to leverage these technologies to make its search technology even more sophisticated than it already is, Pichai revealed. The end goal is for search to evolve into more of a smart assistance service, with users able to ask Google for help based on context, needs and situation.

“The average parent has different needs than the average college student,” Pichai explained. “Similarly, a user wants different help when in the car versus the living room. Smart assistance should understand all of these things and be helpful at the right time, in the right way.”

Pichai said that machine learning and AI will eventually play a big part in how people accomplish daily tasks, travel and more. These technologies will also play a big role in helping the world to tackle larger challenges, such as curing cancer and helping to combat climate change. Pichai didn’t go into details on how AI technologies might help in these areas, but Google’s work on self-driving cars might be one example.

The mobile web is another key interest for Google, Pichai said. He noted that mobile is already a major source of traffic for Google’s websites and services, and that the company is constantly working on providing faster and smoother mobile experiences. For example, Google has been working with numerous developers, publishers and others on mobile ecosystem projects such as Accelerated Mobile Pages and Progressive Web Apps, Pichai said. All of these efforts are aimed at delivering better mobile experiences, he said.

“Over time, the computer itself—whatever its form factor—will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day,” Pichai said. “We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.”

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