{"id":70827,"date":"2025-10-10T22:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/70827\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T22:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:23:08","slug":"the-week-in-playback-the-smart-home-has-a-new-ai-assistant-join-the-fold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/70827\/","title":{"rendered":"The Week in Playback: The Smart Home Has a New AI Assistant Join the Fold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to the week in Playback! After a brief hiatus due to medical issues regarding yours truly (don\u2019t worry, they\u2019re mostly resolved), we\u2019re diving right back into our regularly scheduled weekly recap of some of the biggest news in the custom integration space. And on that note: let\u2019s have a chat about Google\u2019s AI assistant: Gemini.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s Aspirations for Its Gemini AI Assistant <\/p>\n

Among the upper echelons of big-tech-backed AI, Gemini might not get as much love or screen time as say ChatGPT, but for integrators, Gemini might just be one of the biggest AI assistants you\u2019ll want to keep an eye on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all to do with how Google is opting to use its AI assistant over its competitors. While Google wants to do A LOT with Gemini, one area of daily living the company has seen big potential for AI has been in the home. Not just an average home, however, the smart home.<\/p>\n

Since 2023 (around the time Google unveiled Gemini), the company has seen great potential in leveraging AI to improve interactions on its Home platform. Areas of improvement Google sees include:<\/p>\n

More contextual interactions that allow the Home platform to execute bespoke commands based on elements such as \u2018recognizing\u2019 users, locations and patterns of behavior. Zero-script automation that allows users to \u2018program\u2019 the AI through voice requests and prompts, thereby removing the need for advanced coding knowledge. How That Translates to the Pro-Channel Smart Home \u2018Arms Race\u2019 <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just Google that sees this potential. In the pro-space we have Josh.ai who have been running with the concept of using AI and machine learning to improve smart home interactions for a lot longer than Google, and now, more recently, we\u2019ve seen Nice ramp up their game with the introduction of their AI assistant Mylo.<\/p>\n

Just remember though that in many areas of business and work, AI is broadly being used as a means of raising the skill floor.<\/p>\n

Yes, at the top end, it can do some incredible things, but it\u2019s worth considering that with one of these three companies being a more consumer-focused product, how close is that injection of AI going to bring it to some of the functionalities of some pro-solutions?<\/p>\n

To be clear, this is IF Google can get Gemini to do all that it wants to as an AI assistant. For one, we\u2019re still waiting on a lot of the promises that have been made regarding AI\u2019s capabilities by the Mag 7, and for two, Google has had a bit of a history of over promising and then tweaking the marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why Integrator\u2019s Should Keep an Eye on Google\u2019s Gemini for Home Play <\/p>\n

For the time being, it\u2019s food for thought for both integrators and manufacturers who have any interest in what AI can do to make their systems work that much better for clients. If AI is all about democratizing technology and integrators are often viewed as gatekeepers in this regard, how might that shift the dynamic on projects? Will it even?<\/p>\n

Personally, if anything, I think Google\u2019s high profile shot at boosting the capabilities of the smart home is just going to draw more attention to the raw potential of an AI assistant in that space.<\/p>\n

If they miss: that\u2019s just an opening for the likes of pro-channel players to fill.<\/p>\n

If they hit: it will definitely raise expectations across the board, and anyone who isn\u2019t able to provide these simpler, more intuitive systems, might get left in the dust.<\/p>\n

The Full Week in Playback <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in learning more about what Google did with Gemini this week, a link to our full article will be provided below, as well as some other top news pulled from all corners of the AV and smart home industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to the week in Playback! After a brief hiatus due to medical issues regarding yours truly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56230,363,367,32102,56231,111,139,69,1548,145,56232],"class_list":{"0":"post-70827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-ai-assistants","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-google","11":"tag-google-home","12":"tag-home-automation","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-smart-home","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-week-in-playback"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}