Google Assistant could be getting a refresh powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI), according to a leaked internal email.
Axios obtained and published the email from Google Assistant VP Peeyush Ranjan and product director Duke Dukellis. The email outlines plans to incorporate generative AI into Assistant and changes the company is making to work toward that goal. Interestingly, the letter also notes that some of the Assistant team is already working on bringing generative AI to Assistant on mobile.
“As a team, we need to focus on delivering high-quality, critical product experiences for our users. We’ve also seen the profound potential of generative AI to transform people’s lives and see a huge opportunity to explore what a supercharged Assistant, powered by the latest LLM technology, would look like. (A portion of the team has already started working on this, beginning with mobile.)”
The email goes on to explain how the company will combine the Services and Surfaces teams, while the Mobile and NLP teams will get new leaders. Google will also eliminate a small number of roles.
Google’s plan to incorporate generative AI into Assistant hardly comes as a surprise. Google Assistant is one of the main ways people currently interact with “intelligent” computing, though I think it’s a stretch to call Assistant smart or AI at this point.
However, it remains to be seen how Google incorporates generative AI. It’s possible the company plans to use its Bard chatbot in some way, or perhaps it has something else it’s cooking up. Regardless, we could soon see a smarter, more conversational Google Assistant.
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