Google now wants real AI to run its Assistant app.
The search giant recently said in an email to employees that the time is right to give its Assistant app the power it needs to make it a great virtual assistant.
Google announced its Assistant app in May 2016 but integrated it into its apps later in September that same year, per Search Engine Land.
Google Assistant App AI Powerup
Google's Assistant app has some catching up to do when it comes to its capabilities. According to Tech Crunch, Google is playing catch-up with other companies that have turned to large language model (LLM) technology to power their chatbots and other virtual assistants online.
As of press time, its Assistant app, much like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, depends on the subjects and verbs of users' commands like "traffic+downtown+now" or "weather+forecast+tomorrow" to function as intended. While this method may have worked in the mid to late 2010s, AI advancements made it rigid compared to the conversational capabilities LLM tech provides.
As such, Google sent an internal email that reportedly state it is planning to overhaul its Assistant app by powering it up with LLM tech, per the email Axios reported. It also revealed that Google's Assistant team leads see an opportunity to explore what an LLM tech-powered Assistant app would look like and what it would be capable of doing.
Google VP Peeyush Ranjan and Director of Product Duke Dukellis even mentioned in the email that they and the company are deeply committed to Assistant and that they're optimistic about its "bright future" ahead.
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However, the shift towards LMM tech wouldn't be an easy decision. Google's email also stated that the changes planned for Assistant will mean the reorganization of the teams that work on it.
Of course, layoffs are given since a reorganization is involved, though Google plans to sack a few or a dozen or so employees affected by the reorganization rather than in droves as it did previously. Whether Google will push for an LLM-powered Assistant is still unclear, but with Amazon working on a reboot for Alexa using AI, Google could push itself into doing so as well.
What Are LLMs?
LLMs is a type of AI algorithm that uses deep learning techniques and large amounts of data sets to understand, summarize, generate, and predict new content, per Tech Target. They work using a complex approach that derives relationships between different words and concepts to train itself until it can generate a response.
These responses include answers to a question, newly generated text, a summarized text, or sentiment analysis. It is due to this capability that companies use LLMs to power their chatbots and other virtual assistants online.
Despite its capabilities, using LLMs can be tricky. They're expensive to develop and train since they need a large amount of data sets to provide conversational answers to end users, per Towards Data Science.
Testing, training, and fine-tuning the LLM to a satisfactory level is also difficult as it usually involves a lot of trial and error based on user feedback.
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