Google is desperate
They've successfully connected themselves to 'AI' in the minds of the average person, then suddenly there's a new 'AI' thing in the news that isn't Google's, and worse has funding from Microsoft! So they have to roll something out to compete.
The magic of voice assistants has worn off for most people. At first they mostly sucked, but with years and countless billions of interactions they've improved to where they are all pretty much indistinguishable in how well they work so people take that for granted and are no longer impressed like they were when someone would get an Echo right after they came out and their friends willing to overlook all the stupid mistakes it made for the times it got things right.
So the next big thing will be assistants that can carry on a conversation with you or generate content for you. I could see the former being useful, but the latter - other than people trying to pull a fast one on their professor or boss - would have much less appeal to people for day to day use.
The dream of course is that you could have one that collects enough personal data about you (while keeping it absolutely private!!) that it could take what it knows about into account in its responses. I could be looking for a new car and it already knows I will only consider ones with AWD, hate SUVs and crossovers, prefer 2 doors to 4, etc. and it could help me limit my search further by showing me options and carrying on a conversation about it ("ugh, that has a spoiler, those look stupid I don't want anything with a spoiler") and that would actually be of real value. The "keeping my personal data private" part would be a bigger roadblock to this IMHO than the technology to make an assistant "smart" enough to do this, unfortunately.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
