Google Assistant is undergoing a transformation so that it can take advantage of generative AI.
As Axios reports, an internal email sent to Google employees explains how generative AI has the potential to "transform people's lives" and the company sees "a huge opportunity to explore what a supercharged Assistant, powered by the latest LLM technology, would look like."
Work has already begun on injecting AI into the mobile version of Assistant, but unfortunately, the addition of AI to the virtual assistant is also resulting in some job losses. Google confirms in the email that "we are also eliminating a small number of roles within the team."
Any employee whose role is disappearing will be given a minimum of 60 days to do an internal search for another position within the company.
For consumers, the Google Assistant they are used to is set to disappear, replaced by one powered by AI similar to that currently used by Google Bard. Whether users notice the change remains to be seen, but it does mean the breadth of tasks Assistant can undertake should increase significantly as Google continues to improve the underlying large language model it relies on, which initially should be PaLM 2.
The shift to embrace AI for the virtual assistant follows ChatGPT's Android app rolling out last week. It doesn't currently allow access to the more capable and reliable ChatGPT Plus, but that's surely only a matter of time.