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Changes we're making to Google Assistant

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Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#11

Post by jpcfl »

napoleoncomplex wrote: post #4

A lot of the changes just don't make any sense? Some of the features removed: - Using your voice to send an email, video or audio message. You can still make calls and send text messages - Rescheduling an event in Google Calendar with your voice. You can still schedule a new event. - Asking to take certain actions by voice, such as send a payment, make a reservation, or post to social media. You can still ask Assista…

My guess is that a lot of these features are hard-coded, and they are deprecating them in order to replace them with a more generic LLM-based assistant.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#13

Post by nostrademons »

smileysteve wrote: post #7

Defaulting to search or YouTube feels like a money / metrics grab. No longer displaying commute time to work, but you can check it on maps? So, they're removing the assistant part into a search box.

I suspect it's org politics - but yes, in search of money and metrics.

Assistant alienated a lot of other departments from 2016-2020 with their rapid rise and rapid growth in headcount (and ability to push integrations through whether they were a good idea or not). Then they failed to make significant money, right into an economic environment where making money was prioritized much more highly than speculative researchey new markets. These changes are them trying to make themselves indispensable to other PA's metrics, so that when budgets are set, they can argue "You can't cut Assistant, look at the drop in searches & YouTube views that would result in." Same reason why they were hit harder in the layoffs than other more profitable products.

Re: Changes we're making to Google Assistant

#20

Post by eterm »

Wow that's a big list of surprisingly useful features being ripped out.

I'd already noticed my new phone (pixel 8, I fucking hate it) had trouble setting a simple timer with a voice command ( last time I tried it gave me a shitty youtube video result of a 10 minute timer!?!), but this list of removed features goes further, removing other basic functionality from voice assistance.

If all a voice assistant can do is google my "command" and read me the results, that's a terrible experience. The whole selling point (to me) is the ability to do something magic with what I'm asking.

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