Google is releasing a fully redesigned smart speaker that swaps its decade-old assistant for a chattier, AI-driven one. The new $99.99 Google Home Speaker is built around "Gemini for Home," Google's generative-AI assistant.
According to TechCrunch, Google is betting that generative AI can breathe new life into the smart speaker, replacing the rigid, keyword-based commands of the old Google Assistant era with more natural, conversational Gemini interactions.
The timing underscores how long this category has stalled. Wired notes the device arrives six years after Google's last smart speaker, and is a HomePod-style unit redesigned specifically to host Gemini's chatbot. Per The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, the speaker ships June 29 — roughly nine months after it was first announced — and doubles as a Matter controller, letting it manage smart-home gadgets across brands.
On hardware, Engadget reports the upgrades include 360-degree audio alongside the deeper Gemini integration, suggesting Google wants the device to compete on sound as well as smarts.
The broader bet is that talking to a speaker should feel less like memorizing exact phrases and more like a real conversation. If Gemini can follow context and handle messier, back-and-forth requests, it could make voice assistants genuinely useful again rather than glorified timers and weather machines.
Why it matters: smart speakers have felt frozen for years, and Google is using its most advanced AI to test whether conversational assistants can finally make the living-room device worth talking to again.