Google’s Home app is joining the generative AI party

Besides coming to Google Assistant, Google’s generative AI tech will be helping to enhance the Google Home app, perfect for filtering all the items in your event history and event creating new automations.

Announced during its Made by Google event in New York on Wednesday, the new version of Google Home will arrive with baked-in generative AI smarts designed to deliver a “streamlined” rundown of what’s going on in your smart home. 

For example, rather than having to scroll through a lengthy feed of unordered events, the revamped Google Home will be able to present a “quick and easy summary” of your feed, complete with highlights that detail notable happenings such as unfamiliar faces, delivered packages, moving vehicles, and detected people.

Google

You’ll also be able to ask questions in the Google Home app using natural language (presumably with the help of the new Assistant with Bard), such as “did any packages come yesterday?” The Home app will then respond with images and details, again in natural language.

In addition to asking about specific events, you’ll also be able to ask for more general help. “Help me stop missing packages,” for example, could prompt the Google Home app to generate a new routine that (say) blinks your smart lights three times whenever your Nest doorbell detects a delivery.

Google says the new and “experimental” generative AI-enhanced features to the Home app will arrive next year “for subscribers”–which sounds an awful lot like you’ll need to pay for Nest Aware (starting at $8/month) to give them a try.