If Gemini Live comes to smart speakers, I’ll actually use them again

Lately, it feels like the smarter AI chatbots have become, the more useless my smart speakers and smart displays are. I think it’s been a double-edged sword that has caused such a sharp decline in usefulness, but it has most definitely been felt.

On one hand, you simply have a resource gap. Once Google moved over to Gemini, the Google Assistant not only stopped improving: it actually lost server and manpower resources. On the other hand, as AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini continue to evolve and improve, the comparison between them and Google Assistant isn’t flattering at all.

So I’ve largely stopped using voice commands and queries on smart home stuff altogether. We have a few Nest Hubs in the house with a few smart speakers at the office, and I almost never talk to any of them on purpose. They all light up from time to time when I utter something close to “Hey Google”, but that’s about all the conversational back-and-forth I engage in with these now-dumb-feeling speakers.

Don’t get me wrong: they all still serve a purpose for music playback and to act as decent picture frames, but the promise of Google Assistant helping me do anything of any sort from voice interactions is solidly down the drain at this point for me. But there’s help on the way that could 100% change all of that if things plays out the way I think they might.

Gemini baked into Google Assistant

According to a recent announcement, it seems Google is set to inject the now-defunct Google Assistant with Gemini powers, and that is quite interesting to consider. After watching examples of Gemini Live at Google’s hardware event yesterday, I’m extremely excited to see if that sort of conversational AI chatbot energy transfers over to Google’s smart home equipment.

While it seems it could take until year’s end before any real changes happen, I’m really excited to think about what it will look like to interact with my existing smart speakers at home and at work with the conversational abilities it seems Gemini is now capable of.

If we can chat in this way with our voices and have AI actually think on its own to help solve problems, complete tasks, and execute things around the house, my entire attitude towards Google’s home hardware will shift dramatically.

For now, however, I’m holding off on getting too far ahead of myself. Our Pixel 9 Pro XL review unit should arrive today, and I’m very interested to give this new Gemini Live a shot to see just how conversational I can get with my queries and requests. If it works well on the phone, I imagine a similar thing can happen with connected speakers and displays, too. And if it does all come together, it will be quite the hardware resurgence.