Google Assistant gets the boot as ‘Gemini for Home’ arrives to upgrade your smart speakers

For nearly a decade, the Google Assistant has been the voice of our smart homes. But yesterday as a part of the Made by Google 2025 event, Google announced the beginning of a new era. The Google Assistant as we know it is being replaced by an all-new, far more powerful voice assistant for the next generation of help at home: Gemini for Home. This isn’t just a rebranding; it’s a fundamental shift from a command-and-control assistant to a truly intelligent, conversational AI for every member of your household – and I’m here for it.

What makes Gemini for Home so much smarter

Gemini for Home is built on the same advanced reasoning, inference, and search capabilities of the Gemini models we have on our phones, tablets and desktops, making it both more powerful and easier to use than the Google Assistant. While you’ll still say “Hey Google” to get started, the subsequent interactions are about to feel completely new.

Google is replacing rigid commands with the ability to understand more nuanced or complex requests. For example, you can now:

• Discover and play media more naturally: Ask Gemini to “play that song from this year’s summer blockbuster about race cars,” and it will find what you’re looking for across multiple streaming platforms.
• Use more powerful smart home controls: You can now issue multiple commands at once (“Dim the lights, and set the temp to 72 degrees”) or use complex reasoning, like “turn off the lights everywhere except my bedroom.”
• Coordinate your family life more easily: The improved natural language support means you can say things like “add the ingredients to make an authentic Italian lasagna to my shopping list” or “create a calendar event for the season premiere of my favorite show.”

Gemini Live comes to the living room

The truly conversational power of Gemini Live is also coming to your home. You can kick off a session by saying, “Hey Google, let’s chat,” and from that point on, you can have a natural, back-and-forth discussion without needing to repeat the wake word.

This unlocks some incredible new possibilities, from getting in-the-moment help with troubleshooting a broken dishwasher to using it as a creative partner to brainstorm a bedtime story for your kids on the fly. You can even interrupt its responses to refine or redirect the discussion just like you can on your phone.

The future of the Assistant

This is a massive change, and it will happen over time. Google has confirmed that Gemini for Home will replace Google Assistant on existing speakers and displays. There will be both free and paid versions of the new assistant, and early access will begin this October, with more details to be shared soon.

This is the end of an era for the Google Assistant, but it’s the beginning of something far more powerful. Gemini for Home looks to finally deliver on the long-held promise of a truly helpful and conversational AI for every part of our lives, and we can’t wait to see it in action.