{"id":190467,"date":"2025-10-05T00:58:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T00:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/190467\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T00:58:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T00:58:47","slug":"voice-assistants-are-begging-for-a-do-over-should-you-really-give-them-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/190467\/","title":{"rendered":"Voice Assistants Are Begging for a Do-Over. Should You Really Give Them One?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you believe what Google and Amazon want you to believe, this is the age of voice assistants\u2026 once again. This week, both companies unveiled more details about the future of their smart home ecosystems, which centers on a couple things: new smart speakers (of course) in the form of the Google Home Speaker<\/a> and new Echo products<\/a> with better sound and faster chips, but perhaps more importantly, a new, and supposedly, upgraded crop of voice assistants to power them. For Google, it\u2019s Gemini for Home and, for Amazon, there\u2019s Alexa+, both of which are being fueled by advances in large language models (LLMs) like those used by ChatGPT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See Echo Studio at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

See Echo Dot Max at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

In both companies\u2019 estimation, Alexa+ and Gemini for Home are not just new generations of voice assistants, but the first real generational expansion since the dawn of voice assistants 10 years ago. With that anticipation are some big promises. This time around, the companies say, you\u2019ll be able to do it all. Want an Uber? Order it with Alexa+<\/a>. Want to check your home camera to see what your cats have been up to all day? Ask Gemini.<\/a> Want to turn off every smart light in your house except one? Well, that\u2019s something you can actually\u00a0ask for now instead of painstakingly lobbing several commands and hoping they stick. It all sounds great. It sounds like exactly the type of ambient computing we\u2019ve yearned for since voice assistants crept their way into our homes ages ago. It all sounds so ideal, and it also sounds, if I\u2019m being honest, like it could be a total crock of shit.<\/p>\n

\"AmazonAmazon\u2019s new Death Star-esque Echo speaker. \u00a9 Adriano Contreras \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

Let me be clear: I have no doubt that chatbots can be transformative in some ways. We\u2019ve already seen how they can be applied to areas like search,<\/a> allowing for more complex queries, comparisons, and advice. We\u2019ve seen their generative capabilities<\/a> when combined and transposed to models like Veo<\/a> or Sora<\/a>. We\u2019ve seen how they can code basic apps<\/a> by just typing an idea into a text box. Even if all those capabilities are far from perfect, we\u2019ve seen hard examples of how they can work when they work well. Voice assistants? Well, we have a lot less proof.<\/p>\n

Amidst the fanfare from Amazon this week, there was one glaring omission. While Alexa+, its next-gen voice assistant, has been available in early access, it hasn\u2019t revealed when it plans to release the upgrade more broadly after a year\u00a0of heralding it. It\u2019s still in \u201cearly access\u201d for U.S. customers. That could mean a lot of things, obviously; maybe Amazon is just taking its time and making sure things are fine-tuned before unleashing Alexa+ unto the world. But on a more cynical level, it could also mean that Alexa+ isn\u2019t quite ready for the big leagues.<\/p>\n

Giving credence to that last theory? Siri. Remember when Apple promised an imminent release of next-gen LLM-powered Siri as a part of Apple Intelligence way back in June 2024? Yeah, well, it\u2019s still not here<\/a>, and there\u2019s no real indication of when it will arrive. And the reason? Well, if we were to put on our thinking hats, it would be that it\u2019s just not ready yet. To take that inference one step further: functional LLM-powered voice assistants are turning out to be a taller order than companies like Apple, arguably the most resourced tech company in the world, had anticipated.<\/p>\n

\"GoogleThe Google Home Speaker\u2026 is not coming out until spring 2026. \u00a9 Adriano Contreras \/ Gizmodo<\/p>\n

Now, maybe Amazon or Google will have more luck on that front\u2014Google in particular has poured vast resources into advancing Gemini,<\/a> and it wouldn\u2019t be unreasonable to think all of that attention and investment could lead to some kind of breakthrough. But there\u2019s still plenty to be skeptical about. I recently got a briefing on Google\u2019s new smart home products, including its Gemini for Home assistant, and according to Google, the process of imbuing a voice assistant with an LLM isn\u2019t quite as straightforward as you\u2019d think.<\/p>\n

While Gemini might be great at understanding natural language, it might actually not\u00a0be ideal for doing the simpler stuff, like turning your lights off and on. Chatbots, though they can be impressive at times, have a tendency to overthink and interpret, which makes them good for some tasks, but is not what you want when it comes to the bread-and-butter smart home ones.<\/p>\n

Anish Kattukaran, the chief product officer of Google Home and Nest, told Gizmodo that simple commands have to \u201cwork 10 out of 10 times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of those differences, Google says it\u2019s actually separating models in Gemini for Home, meaning the more advanced LLM probably won\u2019t be switching your lights on and off or setting timers. When you say \u201cHey, Google,\u201d that will be your pared-down, more task-focused Gemini\u2014the one you\u2019ll be using for timers, lights, playing music, quick web searches, and other general smart home automation stuff. When you say, \u201cHey Google, let\u2019s chat,\u201d however, Gemini for Home activates a Gemini Live mode that uses more of the LLM\u2019s natural language powers to have a conversational \u201cchat.\u201d This is where you\u2019ll get more reasoning and creativity for making recipes on the fly or brainstorming a vacation. In this mode with Gemini Live, the AI will be \u201clistening\u201d and more anticipatory, allowing you to speak naturally without it feeling like you\u2019re constantly barking commands and then it does a thing for you.<\/p>\n

That begs the question: how much of Gemini is really in\u00a0the more dumbed-down model that you\u2019ll be using every day? And how advanced is it really? It\u2019s also worth noting that Gemini for Home<\/a>, like Alexa+, is currently in early access, and Google\u2019s issue with retrofitting voice assistants with an LLM isn\u2019t exclusive to Gemini\u2014it\u2019s the same issue companies face across the board.<\/p>\n

Listen, I\u2019m not just willing to wind up with egg on my face writing this stuff, but I\u2019m hoping that I do. I, like many others, have a simplified smart home myself, and have (also like many others) experienced the frustration and friction of using it even for simple tasks. I\u2019m ready for the next generation of voice assistants, even if it means I have to fork over a monthly subscription to use them. But as hopeful as I am, it\u2019s been a long decade of wanting more but continually expecting less. So, in the case of Gemini, Alexa, and Siri, I\u2019m going to need to see results before I buy into a full-on voice assistant redo.<\/p>\n

See Echo Studio at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

See Echo Dot Max at Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you believe what Google and Amazon want you to believe, this is the age of voice assistants\u2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,20820,971,276,277,49,48,192,6890,32363,61,50780],"class_list":["post-190467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alexa","tag-amazon","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-google","tag-google-gemini","tag-siri","tag-technology","tag-voice-assistants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}