Google Assistantis one of the best voice assistants around,capable of doing everythingfrom setting alarms to managing your shopping lists and reading articles to you when prompted using simple voice commands. However, Google has been throwing its weight behind generative AI in a big way with Bard and several other utilities. It turns out Google could also be building generative AI capabilities for Assistant, starting with a feature that summarizes web content for you.
Assistant reads out web pageswith ease. In fact, you’re able to try it out with this story by saying “Hey Google, read this page” or “read aloud.” However, this will read out every word of text on the page, including content above and below the article, which isn’t expressly related.9to5Googlewas sifting through the code for version 14.29 of the main Google app available on the Play Store, when it discovered a new generative AI feature for Assistant, which could eliminate the fluff and get straight to business.
If you summon Assistant using the hotword while browsing the web on Chrome or an in-app browser (also a Chrome-powered experience by default), you will see a newSummarizebutton appear beside theReadcommand shortcut we discussed earlier. Alternatively, you could just command Assistant to “summarize this.” Both methods of activation don’t seem to work at the moment, throwing a simple error message saying Assistant is unable to handle the request.
However, 9to5Google believes the tool could conveniently summarize any web page — and not just articles, because as we see with Bard responses, Google’s generative AI model is quite good at summarization. With luck, it may work on other browsers as well. GoogleDocs was the first service to benefitfrom an AI-powered summarization feature, but generative AI experiences like Bard and the Search Labs experiment have kept their distance from Assistant-like capabilities, suggesting summarization may be a Pixel-exclusive feature when it comes to Assistant.
Although we are excited about the first generative AI feature coming to Google Assistant, there is a big issue lurking in the shadows. There is a possibility the feature emphasizes a few things from the source while glossing over other bits, creating room for a bias you won’t realize unless you compare the synopsis with the source.
The cause for concerns are further amplified by concurrent generative AI applications Google is developing, like theassistive tool for journalistswe heard about earlier this week. Independent of each other, the utilities may not be a cause for serious concert to the average Assistant user, but together, content AI creates with a bias could become dangerous misinformation when combined with an AI-powered summarization tool.
As long as Google can circumvent the dangers of such a closed feedback loop, a summarization feature could be a boon, Pixel-exclusive or not. It could save you time and effort spent scrolling through the internet, delivering exactly what you came for in a few short seconds. We still don’t know when summarization will be available on Assistant, but we will keep our eyes peeled for it.
