SCOUT· 62%39m·2026-08-20·TechnologyWe ask Gemini and Alexa to track cats and give advice
For better or worse, Amazon Alexa and Google Home's smart voice assistants have been imbued with the powers of generative AI. The promise is that you can use natural language with your smart speaker to adjust your thermostat, lock the doors, and find out what your pets have been up to. The reality is smart home voice…
Scout bees are checking it out — divided opinions, the swarm hasn't committed.
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What people are saying
“Nilay’s “You ship your org chart” always made sense, but really clicked with this episode.”
“You guys should do a supercut of consumer CEO ai promises and then you guys testing them with basic questions”
“5:00 Nilay is spot-on. As far as I'm aware, Gemini is simply handing commands off to the old Assistant backend for home control. It used to say "connecting to Assistant" when it did stuff and then they changed it to say "connecting to Home.…”
“Gemini has absolutely ruined most of my home automations”
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