What was once the most innovative Google service may soon be yesterday’s news

Google Assistant has revolutionized how we interact with our technology, offering voice commands and contextual awareness as conversational input, and further allowing Google to stand by its mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Sadly, over the past year, anyone you ask will tell you that Assistant has become pretty bad at its job, and it marks a clearly understood shift away from Google’s efforts to invest further in it. Now, this has been confirmed by CNBC, who reported that the Assistant team and its resources are now being officially shifted over to work on the company’s revolutionary Bard Artificial Intelligence project.

What I’m saying is that this could mark the end for Assistant as we know it, and one of Google’s most innovative products may soon be yesterday’s news. Truth be told, I never thought I would say that because back when Assistant was in its prime, it was hard to see anything beyond it being smarter, more useful, or more culturally shaking. However, with the launch of large language models like ChatGPT, Bing AI, and yes, even Google’s Apprentice Bard, I’m starting to realize how mechanical and useless Assistant is by comparison, and I’m not the only one. Clearly, Google feels the same way – hence its shift away from the tried and true virtual helper.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see the writing on the wall, though. AI like Bard is capable of generative conversation and is life-like in its ability to comprehend and construct responses – something Assistant used to give the impression of. Despite that, Google’s first love should not be tossed out so quickly. If the company gives the impression it’s giving Assistant the axe before Bard is even ready for prime time, it could shake consumer trust and investment in its products and services (and Google doesn’t need any extra help with this these days!)

So far, Bard is just in beta, is being considered for integration with Google Messages, and is likely (but not confirmed) powering the company’s new “Help me Write” feature in Gmail and Docs. There’s still a long way to go, and I personally believe Google will keep the Assistant nomenclature since it’s such a household name, and gut it of its previous technology, replacing it with Bard on the back end. This would be the smartest path, and I’m putting my chips on it being the path forward.