2025-01-06 17:00:03| Engadget
This week at CES, Google presented an early look at new software and hardware upgrades coming to Google TV devices. The new features include the integration of Gemini, Google's AI model, to the Google Assistant, as well as a new ambient experience. New smart TVs with Google TV will also gain far-field mics and proximity sensors to support the new software perks.
If you've used a Google TV or Google streaming device, you may have already used the "hey Google" prompt to search for shows to watch. With the addition of Gemini, those "conversations" should now feel more natural. Asking follow up questions or even changing topics to ask about something else won't require you to say the prompt again. You should also be able to search for content more intuitively, saying things like, "What are the newest movies from Disney?" Interacting with your connected smart home devices should be easier as well, letting you say, for example, "Who's at the front door?" to view your video doorbell feed.
The new Google TV experience will include YouTube videos to supplement answers to your queries. So if you ask, "what are the best pizza places in Chicago?" your TV will give you a list of videos to check out. To facilitate the new AI-fueled Assistant capabilities, Google TV sets will now come standard with far-field microphones so you can talk to the Google Assistant without the remote.
Google is also working on a new ambient experience that will rely on proximity sensors to trigger an on-screen hub that shows personalized widgets like weather, news, traffic and so on. And when you're not viewing the hub or actively watching TV, an always-on mode can display art or even AI-generated screensavers, again enabled by Gemini's smarts.
We've seen versions of some of these features before. Amazon's Echo Show smart displays rely on proximity sensors to display personal details. Supplementing your queries with YouTube videos and creating AI screensavers with voice prompts are both features we saw with the new Google TV Streamer from last year. And of course, AI integration has been an unofficial mandate for every tech company throughout 2024 and it's everywhere at CES this year. If the new smarts makes finding something good to watch an easier endeavor, it'll be a welcome use of the technology.
Google demonstrated the new features at CES this week and has said the technology will be available on new Google TV devices sometime this year, but we don't have a firm date for when the new devices will be available.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/gemini-ai-is-coming-to-google-tv-devices-in-2025-making-them-easier-to-talk-to-160003805.html?src=rss
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