Gemini for Home needs a new speaker to make Google’s next-gen voice assistant actually feel new.
It’s been five long years since Google last released the Nest Audio smart speaker, but here we are. Today, Google unveiled the Google Home Speaker, which comes with upgraded hardware designed specifically to power a new generation of Gemini-run AI in your home.
According to Google, the Home Speaker comes with “custom processing to handle Gemini’s advanced
AI for faster, more fluid interactions,” which basically just means it’s designed to run Gemini for Home, its new (hopefully more intelligent) generation of voice assistant. What kinds of new-fangled things will you be doing with Gemini for Home, you ask? Well, in addition to your run-of-the-mill voice commands, you’ll also be able to use Gemini Live, which is a conversational Gemini feature that allows a quicker back-and-forth without having to use a wake word.
Unlike the Google Assistant of yore, Google envisions its Gemini Live experience as helping you in real-time with tasks like buying a new car, cooking an impromptu recipe, or fixing your dishwasher (these are all real examples from Google). Whether you’ll use the smart speaker for those things is another question entirely, but Google certainly hopes you’ll try. Google also says its new home assistant will be able to understand more nuanced everyday commands like “turn all of the lights off except one,” or things that are more conditional and specific.
