While virtual assistants are nothing new and have been using artificial intelligence (AI) in subtle ways since their inception, Google is looking to take things to the next level and potentially “supercharge” its Assistant offering using advanced AI — like that found in its Bard chatbot.
Word of an AI-powered Assistant began to spread following a leaked internal email published by Axios, part of which read, “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.”
The email was signed by Google Assistant’s VP Peeyush Ranjan and product director Duke Dukellis. Other details in the email included an update that teams would be reconfigured to better suit the development of this new product, with Surfaces and Services teams being combined into one and a Mobile team operating separately.
While no timeline for the product was shared in the email, Google did express that it was already working on providing an AI Assistant for mobile devices and though details are scarce at the time of writing, it is assumed that this offering will integrate LLM technology found in Google’s chatbot Bard.
In related tech news, Google researchers equip AI to transform brain scans into music.
