Siri and Google Assistant look to generative AI for a new lease on life
Featured Article
Comment
There’s a lot riding on next week’s WWDC 2024 keynote. The presentation’s stakes are far higher than your standard post-event market moves. The pressure for Tim Cook and crew to deliver the goods is, in a very real sense, even higher than it was in the lead up to last year’s Vision Pro announcement.
On Monday, Apple will lay out its AI plans. The subject has been a massive question mark looming over Cupertino for the last few years, as competitors like Google and Microsoft have embraced generative AI. There’s a broad industry consensus that systems powered by large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini will profoundly affect how we interact with our devices.
Apple is expected to announce a partnership with OpenAI that will bring the company’s smarts to the iPhone and Mac. Apple’s near-term strategy is a deep integration between existing properties and generative AI, with Siri at the center. Since its debut in 2011, Apple has pushed to make the voice assistant an integral part of all its operating systems.
In the intervening 13 years, however, Siri has fallen short of the revolution Apple promised. There are plenty of reasons for this, though the primary is capability. The concept of an artificial voice assistant pre-dates Siri by decades, but no one fully cracked it for a reason. As phone makers and app developers have transformed smartphones into everything devices, these assistants’ jobs have become increasingly complex.
As impressive as the Stanford Research Institute’s work was, the technology required for a frictionless experience simply wasn’t ready. Siri co-founder Norman Winarsky addressed the underlying issue in 2018, noting that Apple’s initial plan was a far more limited assistant that handled things like entertainment and travel. “These are hard problems, and when you’re a company dealing with up to a billion people, the problems get harder yet,” Winarsky noted at the time. “They’re probably looking for a level of perfection they can’t get.”
Generative AI isn’t at that level of perfection, either — not yet, at least. Hallucinations are still a problem. That’s precisely why, even after the massive buzz of the past few years, it still feels like we’re very much in the baby steps phase. If anything, I would say that Google, for one, has been overly aggressive in places. The best example of this is the company’s decision to surface Gemini results at the top of searches.
When something is prioritized above trusted resources in the world’s dominate search engine, it needs to get things right as much as humanly possible, and not, you know, tell people to eat glue. Google labels Gemini results a product of its “Search Labs,” but surely a majority of users don’t understand what that means in terms of product maturity, nor can they be bothered to click through for more information.
Over the past few years, I’ve met several researchers who have used the term “magic” to describe the results of “black box” surrounding large language models. This isn’t a knock against all of the amazing work happening in the space, so much as a realization that there’s still so much we don’t know about the technology.
Arthur C. Clarke put it best: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
One place Google has been more intentional, however, is with its integration of Gemini into Android. Rather than replacing Assistant outright, Google has been integrating its generative AI platform into different applications. Users can also opt-in to making Gemini their default by assigning it to the Assistant button on Pixel devices. This implementation requires deliberate action on the user’s part at least thus far.
While Gemini hasn’t completely conquered Android yet, however, Google is clearly signaling at a day in the not too distant future when it replaces Assistant outright. I half expected an announcement along those lines at I/O last month, though I’m glad it ultimately opted to give Gemini more time to bake.
Whether the Assistant name sticks around is ultimately a branding decision. For its part, Apple is very wedded to the Siri name. It has, after all, spent well over a decade pitching the product to consumers. Sooner than later, however, generative AI will eat the smart assistant space.
Voice assistants in general are having an existential moment. Smart speakers have a broader bellwether for platforms like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. Shipments have declined, after heating up during the pandemic. It’s unfair to characterize the category as doomed, but it will be in the long run, without the proper shot in the arm.
Generative AI is poised to be the logical successor, but the first round of hardware devices built around these models, including the Humane Ai Pin and Rabbit R1, have only been testaments to how far the category has to go before it can be considered a consistent experience for mainstream users.
Apple will finally show its hand on Monday. While rumors point to the company transitioning a number of employees to generative AI operations following its electric car implosion, all signs point to Apple having ceded a significant head start to the competition. As such, its most logical play is a partnership with a reigning powerhouse like OpenAI.
Shortly after the Siri acquisition was announced, Steve Jobs was asked whether the company was trying to beat Google at its own game. “It’s an AI company,” Jobs noted. “We’re not going into the search business. We don’t care about it. Other people do it well.”
The company’s approach to generative AI is currently in the same place. At this stage, Apple can’t beat OpenAI at its own game, so it’s partnering instead. But even the best of the current models have a way to go before they’re ready to fully replace the current crop of smart assistants.
Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.
Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.
The latest Fintech news and analysis, delivered every Tuesday.
TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice.
Investor demand has been so strong for Rippling’s shares that it is letting former employees particpate in its tender offer. With one exception.
It turns out the space industry has a lot of ideas on how to improve NASA’s $11 billion, 15-year plan to collect and return samples from Mars. Seven of these…
Featured Article
When Bowery Capital general partner Loren Straub started talking to a startup from the latest Y Combinator accelerator batch a few months ago, she thought it was strange that the company didn’t have a lead investor for the round it was raising. Even stranger, the founders didn’t seem to be…
The keynote will be focused on Apple’s software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje’s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Anna will be covering for him this week. Sign up here to…
HSBC and BlackRock estimate that the Indian edtech giant Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing.
Apple is set to board the runaway locomotive that is generative AI at next week’s World Wide Developer Conference. Reports thus far have pointed to a partnership with OpenAI that…
LinkedIn has confirmed it will no longer allow advertisers to target users based on data gleaned from their participation in LinkedIn Groups. The move comes more than three months after…
Founders: Need plans this weekend? What better way to spend your time than applying to this year’s Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt. With Monday’s deadline looming, this is a…
The company is in the process of building a gigawatt-scale factory in Kentucky to produce its nickel-hydrogen batteries.
Meta is quietly rolling out a new “Communities” feature on Messenger, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is designed to help organizations, schools and other private groups communicate in…
Featured Article
Voice assistants in general are having an existential moment, and generative AI is poised to be the logical successor.
Education software provider PowerSchool is being taken private by investment firm Bain Capital in a $5.6 billion deal.
Shopify has acquired Threads.com, the Sequoia-backed Slack alternative, Threads said on its website. The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal but said that the Threads.com team will join…
Featured Article
Two senior police officials in Bangladesh are accused of collecting and selling citizens’ personal information to criminals on Telegram.
Carta, a once-high-flying Silicon Valley startup that loudly backed away from one of its businesses earlier this year, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at…
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has successfully delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station, a key milestone in the aerospace giant’s quest to certify the capsule for regular crewed missions. Starliner…
Rivian needs to sell its new revamped vehicles at a profit in order to sustain itself long enough to get to the cheaper mass market R2 SUV on the road.
Featured Article
Apple is hoping to make WWDC 2024 memorable as it finally spells out its generative AI plans.
As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.
Apple’s annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.
Meta launched its Meta Verified program today along with other features, such as the ability to call large businesses and custom messages.
Last year, during the Q3 2023 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg talked about leveraging AI to have business accounts respond to customers for purchase and support queries. Today, Meta announced AI-powered…
TikTok is testing streaks that are similar to Snapchat’s in order to boost engagement, including how long people stay on the app.
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Your usual…
New York-based Revel has made a lot of pivots since initially launching in 2018 as a dockless e-moped sharing service. The BlackRock-backed startup briefly stepped into the e-bike subscription business.…
Google says apps offering AI features will have to prevent the generation of restricted content.
The British retailers association also takes aim at Amazon’s “Buy Box,” claiming that Amazon manipulated which retailers were selected for the coveted placement.
Featured Article
Rivian has changed 600 parts on its R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck in a bid to drive down manufacturing costs, while improving performance of its flagship vehicles. The end goal, which will play out over the coming year, is an existential one. Rivian lost about $38,784 on every vehicle…
Twitch has come up with a solution for the ongoing copyright issues that DJs encounter on the platform. The company announced Thursday a new program that enables DJs to stream…
Powered by WordPress VIP
source
Sponsor:News technical sponsor
Sponsor:News AI sponsor
Sponsor: AI sponsor
Sponsor: AI sponsor
Leave a Comment