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When I wrote about how Gemini isn’t ready to replace Google Assistant on Android, I had a feeling of déjà vu. All the features that Gemini needs to be a great phone assistant are things that another Google product has already developed.
Generative AI is heating up Google’s product development. I feel like we’re still at the beginning of that cycle, but I distinctly remember this happening once before. From 2016 to around 2020, Google was busy developing Assistant. As with Gemini now, given the breakneck pace of new features, Assistant felt like the future and a top priority.
It’s easy to trivialize Google Assistant [U: helped drive] The creation of smart speaker and display form factors, and Google’s foray into headphones. It launched on Android-powered phones, tablets, watches, TVs, and cars, as well as Chromebooks and messaging apps.
At one point, “Google Assistant” was listed in the operating system section of the Pixel 3’s technical specifications. Next, we talked about Assistant Driving Mode and how Google Assistant replaces what was previously in the realm of Android.
The Assistant truly felt like a connection between all Google products. It was a unifying theme and gave the company a sense of consistency. (Zooming out, Google is at its best when it has a company-wide mission. Some have failed miserably, such as chasing Google+/Social and Facebook, and the shift in existence from desktop to mobile (and Google Now plays a key role in differentiation) Early Android from the iPhone – was a success. )
The assistant push came to an end around 2021, and certainly by 2022. Various initiatives outside of Google Assistant’s core voice competencies have been shut down, including the driving mode dashboard, snapshots, (initial) memory, and third-party support.
A cynical interpretation is that Google is better at building than maintaining, codified by its internal structure for quantifying performance and promotion.
A more charitable view is that Assistant has fundamentally reached the technological limits of what was possible in the early 2020s, before the advent of large-scale language models (LLMs).
That said, I’ve previously argued that Google never needed generative AI to make a great assistant. Especially when you look at why Google Now is so promising. Google’s focus and prioritization of new features is ultimately at odds with providing a great experience for a product that already has hundreds of millions of users.
Anyway, that is in the past and we are now in the Age of Gemini.
6: All of this has happened before…
Balter: But the question remains. Does this all have to happen again?
Battlestar Galactica and Peter Pan (movie)
The optimistic view is that LLM has enough power to build really useful assistants and other smart features. Even if it doesn’t, efforts to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) could lead to other foundational innovations that can keep Google focused and drive meaningful product development.
I hope Google now has a good foundation and continues to iterate with Gemini instead of destructively rebooting in a few years. It will truly be a new era.
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