Recent months have underscored a clear reality: smartphones continue to reign supreme. The much-anticipated AI gadgets aimed at alleviating our reliance on phones, such as the Humane AI pin or the Rabbit R1, have proven disappointingly underdeveloped. Any hope that they might provide respite from the pervasive influence of personal technology has evaporated. As the excitement of Hot Gadget Spring fades, we find ourselves entering developer season.
This marks a critical juncture for Android, coinciding with a significant reorganization that has unified the Android team with Google’s hardware division for the first time. The objective is evident: accelerate innovation and integrate AI into a wider array of products. Android’s historical ethos of not favoring Google’s own products has evolved over the years as hardware and software teams have increasingly collaborated. With the removal of this barrier, the era of AI has arrived. Yet, if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that this transition is likely to be somewhat chaotic.
So far, despite Samsung and Google’s best efforts, AI on smartphones has really only amounted to a handful of party tricks. You can turn a picture of a lamp into a different lamp, summarize meeting notes with varying degrees of success, and circle something on your screen to search for it. Handy, sure, but far from a cohesive vision of our AI future. But Android has the key to one important door that could bring more of these features together: Gemini.
Gemini launched as an AI-fueled alternative to the standard Google Assistant a little over three months ago, and it didn’t feel quite ready yet. On day one, it couldn’t access your calendar or set a reminder — not super helpful. Google has added those functions since then, but it still doesn’t support third-party media apps like Spotify. Google Assistant has supported Spotify for most of the last decade.
But the more I come back to Gemini, the more I can see how it’s going to change how I use my phone. It can memorize a dinner recipe and talk me through the steps as I’m cooking. It can understand when I’m asking the wrong question and give me the answer to the one I’m looking for instead (figs are the fruit that have dead wasp parts in them; not dates, as I learned).
However, the true value of Gemini will emerge when it seamlessly integrates across the Android ecosystem: when it’s embedded in your earbuds, your watch, and even within the operating system itself.
The success of Android in the AI era hinges on these integrations. Unlike ChatGPT, Gemini possesses the capability to access your emails, calendars, and a decade’s worth of location history effortlessly. These are tangible advantages, and Google must leverage them effectively. With indications that Apple is gearing up to unveil a significantly smarter Siri at WWDC this year, and with Microsoft and OpenAI making advancements, Google cannot afford to remain complacent. It needs to fully embrace its strengths to deliver AI that transcends mere party tricks — even if it means departing from traditional Android norms.
