Beyond Google Assistant, Google appears to be working on new AI. information Google is reportedly working on a new AI assistant called Pixie that will be exclusive to Pixel devices. Pixie will reportedly be powered by Google’s new Gemini AI model. The report states that Pixie will launch first on the Pixel 9, and that “eventually, Google wants to bring the feature to lower-end phones, watches, and other devices.”
So far, Google and Amazon are reportedly planning to reboot their voice assistants with a new wave of large-scale language models. Since both are still in the rumor stage, neither company has touted how their large-scale language models will benefit voice assistants. Typical complaints today often concern speech recognition accuracy and response time, which language models seem unable to solve. Perhaps large language models will help enable longer, more detailed answers to questions, but whether consumers want to hear paragraph-length answers read out in a synthetic robot voice will depend on whether the market is to judge.
Another feature mentioned in the report is that Google may develop “glasses that can harness the power of AI to recognize objects that the wearer is looking at.” Between Google Glass and Project Iris, Google has started and stopped many eyewear projects.
The move shows how Google has changed its thinking about AI assistants over the past decade. The company previously saw Google Assistant as the future of Google Search and wanted to make it available everywhere. Google Assistant was a great product for a time, available on all Android smartphones, via his Google app on iOS, and via many dedicated hardware such as Google Home/Nest Audio speakers and smart displays . But Google Assistant never made money. All hardware was sold at cost, software was transferred to partners, and the ongoing cost of audio processing was piling up. Google Assistant received no additional revenue in the form of advertising. Amazon is in the same situation as Alexa. No one has figured out how to monetize voice assistants.
Google Assistant is a gold mine, so information previously reported Google plans to “reduce investment in developing Google Assistant voice-assisted search for non-Google devices, including cars and TVs, headphones, smart home speakers, smart glasses, and smart watches using Google Wear.” That’s what it means. The idea is for Google to double down on its own hardware, which Google believes will give it the best protection from regulators threatening its search deals on iPhone and Android partner devices, according to previous reports. It is said that there is According to the report, the idea that “we’re going to compete with the iPhone” seems far-fetched at Google right now.
Making the next-gen assistant exclusive to Pixel 9 falls into this category. Perhaps the ongoing money problem will be solved, or at least explained, by selling phone hardware. The current Google Assistant was initially exclusive to the original Pixel and expanded to Google’s partners, but The Information reports that that doesn’t seem to be the plan this time around (though that could always change). No one knows what will happen to Google AI Assistant No. 1 (Google Assistant) when AI Assistant No. 2 is activated, but it seems possible that AI Assistant No. 2 will disappear. It would also be a way to cut costs and remove Google Assistant from people’s devices.
The problem with doubling down on hardware is that Google Hardware is a small division that hasn’t been able to support this kind of ambition until now. Returning to the quote about third-party devices, Google doesn’t have cars, TVs, or smart glasses (though the report says smart glasses are in the works). In some years, Google’s existing hardware isn’t necessarily better. In any other year, some product lines (laptops, tablets) would sit idle for a long time without Google updating them. Additionally, Google hardware is typically only available in a small portion of the world, about 13 countries. Using third-party devices can protect you from all of this. Google’s strength used to be ecosystem availability, but they give up on that by making everything hardware-only.