Google just announcing a major overhaul to its smart home systems, now using its AI expertise to bring the Gemini model into devices like Nest and smart speakers.

Mackenzie Segalis has the details.

In today's tech check, its smart homes are back with AI.

Yes, they are, Sarah.

After a decade of stalled momentum, the smart home market is suddenly back in play. Google this morning announcing its biggest overhaul since 2016, swapping in Gemini to replace assistant across smart speakers, redesigning the home app, and launching an upgraded line of nest cameras and doorbells. It's the first time that Google's bringing its gen AI tech into the home, transforming once-passive hardware into devices that respond more naturally.

And it comes one day after Amazon unveiled new home hardware with Alexa Plus integration, which landed with more of a whimper than a bang.

Still, both launches show just how much the voice assistant wars have evolved.

Amazon and Google are bolting large language models onto their products, trying to turn voice

from a simple command tool into a smarter, more intuitive interface for everything from smart

homes to search. And for Google, voice is really becoming another way to tighten ecosystem

lock-in across phones, homes,

and everything in between. Amazon, still shut out of the mobile operating system race, is using

Alexa and Echo as a backdoor play for platform relevance. Gene Munster telling me the home

category really peaked around 2015. That's when voice assistants got better at understanding

language, but not at doing much with it. Now, with Gemini, Google is betting that generative

AI can finally deliver on its original promise, understanding context, not just commands, so that you

can have a conversation with Gemini that will draw upon all these home inputs, like your

Nest camera, to answer your question.

And that experience really matters because this isn't just about what the hardware

can do.

It's about which company owns the layer you talk to.

Google announcing a major update to its smart home systems bringing its Gemini AI straight

...