Google Assistant’s fate has been an open question for more than a year now. Once a jewel in Google’s crown, the software was a key to both the company’s mobile and smart home strategies. Half a decade ago, Google was giving away Home Mini speakers in a bid to grow out its ecosystem.
On Tuesday, however, ahead of next week’s Made by Google 2024 event, the company announced that Assistant is sticking around — at least on the Home/Nest side of the fence.
Assistant and Alexa got a nice pop from the pandemic, as the world was suddenly forced to spend more time at home. But in more recent years, both Google and Alexa appear to have taken their feet off the gas.
It’s hyperbole to say — as many have — that the smart home is dead. Plenty of Americans own smart home devices; do a quick survey of your neighborhood and see how many doorbell cameras you can spot. The promise of the smart home was never one or two connected devices per house, however. It was a fully automated connected home ecosystem.
There are plenty of reasons why the whole of the world isn’t living in fully automated smart homes. For one thing, smart devices tend to be far more expensive than their dumb counterparts. For another, the landscape has been fractured for most of its existence as device companies have pushed their own apps and ecosystems. Bad experiences like that can permanently sour a consumer who was initially hooked in by the hype cycle.
The assistants at the heart of these plays have had their own struggles. Samsung’s Bixby and Microsoft’s Cortana went away entirely. Even Apple seemed to stop talking up Siri. The proliferation of generative AI platforms like ChatGPT suddenly made the last generation of smart assistants seem antiquated.
Earlier this year, Google let beta users opt into making its GenAI platform Gemini the default assistant on their Pixel devices. While Gemini and its apparent proclivity for putting glue on pizza weren’t ready to replace Assistant outright, the days were seemingly numbered for its predecessor.
With new Pixel devices just over the horizon, Assistant’s days on Android may still be numbered. For the time being, however, it still has a place on the home page. Along with the launch of a new Learning Thermostat and streaming set-top box, Google announced that Assistant will be sticking around its Home ecosystem, fueled by Gemini models.
Gemini’s exact role in propping up Assistant will likely remain nebulous, but the most obvious application is natural language. Assistant, Alexa and their ilk have long struggled with conversations. Most interactions tend to be single queries. This is a place where generative AI excels.
“You won’t have to phrase your question in a specific way — ask it in the way that feels most comfortable to you,” Google writes. “For example, ask ‘is Pluto a planet?’ and then dig deeper with ‘Could they change their minds again?’ Can’t figure out the name of that song? Just ask Google, ‘What’s that iconic basketball theme song.’ Or Assistant can tap into Gemini’s generative capabilities to have some fun during a family discussion, like ‘Help me make the case that Crocs are extremely cool — and mention sport mode.’ ”
Those specific improvements are set to arrive later this year for Nest Aware subscribers as part of a public preview.
Other clear applications for Gemini include the ability to summarize information — a feature at the center of Google’s push to bring generative AI to its search offerings. Whether Google sticks with Google Assistant or opts to call it Gemini across the board is really a question of branding. Apple recently gave Siri an AI-powered facelift powered by its new Apple Assistant models. Google appears poised to do the same — at least where the smart home is concerned.
