Google is reportedly shifting its assistant to bring generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google’s own Bard and Bing to the company’s intelligent assistant that is a fixture in many smart homes.

According to Axios, which published an internal Google email announcing the changes, the company is exploring a vision of a “supercharged Assistant” powered by large language models (LLMs) like those that power ChatGPT, Bard and other generative AI.

To accomplish this, Google is reorganizing the Assistant team and laying off some team members. According to the email, the company will be combining the Services and Surfaces teams, and the Mobile team will operate separately.

According to Google VP Peeyush Ranjan and director of product Duke Dukellis’ published email, customers have a “strong desire for assistive, conversational technology” to help improve their lives.

“As a team, we need to focus on delivering high-quality, critical product experiences for our users,” the pair wrote in the email. “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.”

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Part of Google’s Assistant team has already begun working on this, according to the email.

Despite the changes, Dukellis and Ranjan say Google is “deeply committed to Assistant” and is optimistic about it’s future with AI.

According to Thurott, this follows a recent string of developments from Google that suggests the company is scaling down its investments in Google Assistant-powered appliances. This includes dropping support for Assistant-powered smart displays from Lenovo, JBL and LG. Thurott also reports that Google hasn’t released a new Nest speaker or Display since the release of the 2^nd gen Nest Hub in 2021.

However, the company recently launched the new Google Pixel Tablet that can be used as a smart home controller, as well as several updates for Google Home.

Google has yet to officially comment on its new vision for Google Assistant, so we’ll have to wait to find out how the tech giant’s intelligent assistant will evolve with smart home technology.

Some smart home vendors are already incorporating generative AI technologies, such as Josh.ai, which announced JoshGPT in June. The company says all Josh.ai users are now able to utilize its AI-based platform for an array of custom integration capabilities along with a generative assistant to help answer questions across any topic.

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