“I suspect they saw the writing on the wall,” said Fatemeh Khatibloo, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. “These are meaningful changes when it comes to the user’s expectations of privacy, but I don’t think this affects their business at all. So why shouldn’t they do these things to give the impression of more privacy?”

After the keynote speech, Google separately announced it would take steps to limit the use of tracking cookies on Chrome, the world’s most popular browser with about a 60 percent market share.

Cookies allow companies to monitor which websites people visit and what ads they have viewed or clicked on. They also are a way for a website to remember who you are so you don’t have to log in every time you visit. Cookies level the playing field for smaller companies in the digital advertising world — allowing them to collect information that helps refine ad targeting.

The announcement is another example of a privacy measure that will most likely have a bigger impact on Google’s competitors. The internet giant uses cookies but is not dependent on them. It already knows more valuable information such as what users search for, what videos they watch and what apps they’ve loaded on their phones.

Even as it was addressing some of the perils of data collection, Google demonstrated how it was using information that people provide to the company to make its products more useful.

Its next-generation Assistant, powered by the company’s artificial intelligence, can learn more about you to personalize reminders and tasks. It can remember your partner’s birthday, for example, and remind you to buy a present a week beforehand. It can also help book car reservations on the web using emails and calendar information.

It can also understand better what you are doing. Google’s digital assistant will have a driving mode to help drivers play music, set map destinations or answer phone calls more easily without taking their hands off the wheel.