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When it was unveiled at last year\u2019s I\/O, Home<\/a> felt like little more than Google\u2019s attempt to cash in on the Echo\u2019s success. And the intervening year hasn\u2019t done a lot to dispel that notion. The company announced a handful of additions to Home and Assistant at this year\u2019s event to try to pull even with Amazon\u2019s lead, but the whole Google Home offering still feels ambling and aimless.<\/p>\n That Google thought it had a slam dunk with Assistant on the mobile side hasn\u2019t helped much, either. Since launching on the Pixel back in October, the voice helper still has a limited reach. Amazon, meanwhile, has made the jump onto handsets by companies like HTC and Huawei, while others, including Samsung, have opted to just build their own damned assistant in house.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear Assistant is a long play for Google. The company has the technological infrastructure and machine learning capabilities to build something truly great. For now, the thing doesn\u2019t do much to distinguish itself from Alexa (unless you count annoying people with unwanted audio ads<\/a>, or being annoyingly triggered by opportunistic TV ads<\/a>\u2026), but it\u2019s still in the company\u2019s best interest to get Assistant as widely distributed as possible.<\/p>\n Home is definitely a big piece of that puzzle, as it attempts to plant its flag in the smart home. But from the looks of industry estimates, Google\u2019s late start isn\u2019t doing it any favors. Recent analyst estimates<\/a> put the company at around 23 percent of the 35 million or so devices currently out there. Amazon\u2019s number is hovering around 70 percent.<\/p>\n Last year, Sundar Pichai described Google\u2019s aim with AI as being to build a \u201cpersonal Google for everyone, everywhere.<\/a>\u201d But the flip side of that desire is the fact that computing is no longer tethered to desktops \u2014 and is fast becoming fragmented across all sorts of competing devices and interfaces (like Amazon\u2019s Echo) \u2014 so a strategic imperative here for Google is that the future of its search business depends on its algorithms remaining persistently available; within reach or earshot wherever people are, whatever network they\u2019re using \u2014 else it risks losing its hard-won status as a verb synonymous with digital search.<\/p>\n So while Mountain View is trying to seize on the smart home as an opportunity, consumer momentum on this front also presents an undeniable risk for it \u2014 making Google vulnerable to a shift in computing behavior that favors voice assistants over traditional search. Because the best algorithm at organizing the internet is not automatically the best (or most popular) voice assistant.<\/p>\n Being able to plug into a vast e-commerce marketplace, as Amazon\u2019s Alexa does, and reach out to all sorts of third-party services to extend utility (as Alexa keeps doing) is probably more obviously compelling to the average person sitting on their sofa right now versus summoning up a verbal version of Google. Alexa has most of the skills right now.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s more heat incoming. Earlier this week, Andy Rubin-led startup Essential also announced its own plans to attack the smart home. And, next week, Apple is expected to show off its big play at WWDC, with a rumored Siri speaker. Though, Apple being Apple, the company will most likely fixate on the premium end of the market, say with a device for audiophiles, not just control freaks. So while things are about to get tighter, Google still has some room to maneuver to grab itself a bigger chunk of the mainstream smart home market \u2014 and thus a chance to reduce the strategic squeeze on its traditional search business.<\/p>\n For now, it remains to be seen how much damage has been done to Google\u2019s search business by Amazon\u2019s careful, long-term maneuvering in the voice AI space, and now by the Echo\u2019s early lead inside the smart home. There\u2019s still plenty to play for, given what are relatively low levels of adoption for these always-listening in-home AIs. Although there is also the question of whether or not there will be massively<\/em> mainstream appeal to barking commands into a terminal. It\u2019s unlikely AI speakers are another smartphone-sized phenomenon. But again, Amazon is quickly expanding its hardware bets to try to convince all sorts of people that Alexa offers utility \u2014 whether they\u2019re fashion lovers<\/a> or\u00a0family-focused\u00a0<\/a>homebodies. Meanwhile, the Dot sets a low barrier for entry on the price front.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also clear that Jeff Bezos and company are benefiting from a lack of direction within Google\u2019s hardware business \u2014 which one source described to us as \u201cextremely chaotic\u201d and \u201cdisorganized,\u201d recounting how separate hardware teams inside the company have unknowingly ended up developing the same product. And while Mountain View is wasting energy grappling with how best to expand its Assistant beyond smartphones, you can be sure Amazon has its eyes fixed on the smart home prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OK, Google\u2026<\/h2>\n
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When it was unveiled at last year’s I\/O, Home felt like little more than Google’s attempt to cash in on the Echo’s success. And the intervening year hasn’t done a lot to dispel that notion. The company announced additions to Home and Assistant at this year’s event to try to pull even with Amazon’s lead, but the whole Google Home offering still feels ambling… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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