Image: Google
Google is reportedly working on a new version of Assistant that will use generative AI to enhance its features. The company has told its staff in an email, obtained by Axios, that it is already experimenting with a “supercharged” Assistant powered by the latest large language models (LLM), similar to the ones behind ChatGPT and Google’s own Bard chatbot. The email says, "A portion of the team has already started working on this, starting with mobile."
As a result of this change, Google says it is restructuring the team that works on Assistant. The email says that the company is "eliminating a small number of roles," but it does not specify how many employees are affected. Axios reports that Google laid off "dozens" of workers.
We don't know yet what features it plans to add to Assistant, but there are some exciting possibilities. For instance, Assistant could use the same technology that powers its AI chatbot, Bard, which could enable it to answer questions based on the information it finds from across the web.