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Is the Google Assistant doomed? The evidence is starting to pile up that the division is going down the tubes. The latest is news from CNBC's Jennifer Elias that says the Google Assistant division has been "reshuffled" to "heavily prioritize" Bard over the Google Assistant. It all sounds like the team is being reassigned.
We'll get into the report details in a minute, but first a quick recap of the past two years of what the assistant has gone through under Google:
- Google Assistant saw eight major speaker/smart display hardware releases in five years from 2016-2021, but the hardware releases seem to have stopped. The last hardware release was in March 2021. That was two full years ago.
- 2022 saw Google remove Assistant support from two in-house product lines: Nest Wi-Fi and Fitbit wearables.
- 2022 also saw a report from The Information that said Google wanted to "invest less in developing its Google Assistant voice-assisted search for cars and for devices not made by Google."
- Google Assistant's driving mode was shut down in 2022.
- Google Assistant's "Duplex on the web" feature was also shut down in 2022.
- One of Google Assistant's core unique features, Reminders, is being shut down in favor of Google Task Reminders soon.
- Google Assistant has never made money. The hardware is sold at cost, it doesn't have ads, and nobody pays a monthly fee to use the Assistant. There's also the significant server cost to process all those voice commands, though some newer devices have moved to on-device processing in a stealthy cost-cutting move. The Assistant's biggest competitor, Amazon Alexa, is in the same boat and loses $10 billion a year.
Each one of those developments could maybe be dismissed individually, but together they start to paint the familiar picture of a looming Google shutdown.
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Google Assistant Might be Doomed: Division “Reorganizes” to Focus on Bard
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(Score: 1, Troll) by SomeGuy on Tuesday April 04, @12:57AM (4 children)
I could have told you this sort of stuff was doomed from day one. Voice assistants have always been a nice toy with no real hope of ever evolving in to anything actually useful. The sort of thing only an idiot would buy, unfortunately there are a lot of idiots out there.
The only reason they hung on this long was because vendors were hopeful they could find some new ways to mine user data that they could get away with and/or insert advertisements. Now that all the tech companies are massively laying off and putting products on the chopping block, this crap rightfully gets the axe.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, @01:16AM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, @01:45PM
And the old or infirm. My mom fell years ago and couldn't move. "Alexa call ". My phone started ringing.
Of course there'a a "for pay" service in the US called "Life Alert"....except it has the stigma of "being old". Whenever I would bring it up with my mom, her reply was "No, that's for old people. I just turned 70 last year, I'm not old." or "70's the new 50."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 04, @01:42AM
>The sort of thing only an idiot would buy, unfortunately there are a lot of idiots out there.
That is entirely a matter of perspective. From the perspective of the sellers (hardware, advertising, user profile data, etc.) it is very fortunate that so many people are willing to provide value in exchange for these sorts of things.
>Voice assistants have always been a nice toy with no real hope of ever evolving in to anything actually useful.
Laying in bed, discussing plans for the weekend, want an updated rain forecast? That's a common use we make of the voice assistant. It's also good for calling out the day's weather when you're standing at the closet deciding. It is easier to turn lights on and off by barking at it than fiddling with a touch screen interface, or god forbid moving your carcass across a room to a physical switch. I don't trust mine to open/close the garage door or similar things, but some people do... Would I die if my voice assistants were taken away, certainly not, but I will say: they're the best alarm clock I have ever had, complete with voice command to STOP the alarm.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04, @12:42PM
I'm an amputee and I have balance problems that make it risky to walk in the dark, so being able to turn lights on and off without having to walk to the light switches is very helpful. The ability to call for help (for example) even if I don't have my phone on me is also useful.
But I guess I'm just an idiot because you don't find things like that useful.