Curated By: Shaurya Sharma
Last Updated: August 01, 2023, 10:47 IST
Mountain View, California, USA
Google Assistant could be getting generative AI features. (Image: Google)
A supposed internal Google email indicates that Google may be adding generative AI-powered capabilities to Google Assistant in order to create a “supercharged Assistant.” Here’s what we know so far.
Google has repeatedly marketed its Google Assistant, which was made famous by Pixel phones, as a one-stop shop to make your life easier—from setting alarms to searching the web. Now, it appears that it could be getting generative AI-powered features as well, in order to create a “supercharged Assistant.”
According to an internal email seen by Axios, Google is planning to introduce generative AI capabilities to Google Assistant—similar to Google Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. This move will essentially overhaul the Google Assistant and open up new ways for consumers to use the feature. Per Axios, development for this feature has already begun for the mobile version of the product, and due to this shift, Google is reorganizing various teams.
In the email, Google notes that it has seen the impact generative AI has created and it sees “a huge opportunity to explore what a supercharged Assistant, powered by the latest LLM technology, would look like.”
Google is making organizational changes and laying off some employees as part of its renewed focus on the Assistant. Google’s Peeyush and Duke stated in the internal email posted by Axios, “As part of this update, we are also eliminating a small number of roles within the team. We have already let these teammates know and we will provide dedicated support to help them through this transition.”
It will be interesting to see how Google integrates its LLMs into Google Assistant. For those who might not know, Google’s chatbot, Google Bard, operates on the PaLM 2 Large Language Model. There is a possibility that Google Assistant could gain functionalities akin to Google Bard but made to better suit a mobile interface.
The Google Assistant was first revealed at Google’s developer conference back in 2016. Initially, it was exclusively accessible on the first-generation Pixel and Pixel XL devices.
