Google Gemini and Google's Confusion

This is more of a rant than a blog post, but this is very classic Google. Google, in my experience (as an Android user for many years), is good at launching new ideas to replace stable ones that worked before. Remember Google Plus? Replaced by Google Hangouts? Then Hangouts, replaced with Google Meet? They’ve since done this many more times, killing enough of their digital products that there’s an entire website dedicated to it: “Killed by Google.”

I still use Google’s stuff because they tend to be cross-platform, which is convenient for me. But sometimes they do something that makes you wonder if they even use their own products. In software engineering, this is called eating your own dog food. Basically:  you’ll know how it tastes if you eat it. 

Apple is very good at this. They clearly have all their developers use their products for their intended purpose, which leads to a seamless experience for the consumer. Watch the MKBHD Vision Pro video series if you want to get a better idea of the attention to detail Apple has with their software experience.

Google, not so much. Google Assistant is Google’s Siri/Bixby, “old AI” in the sense that it was AI before generative AI became the hot new thing. Functionally, Google Assistant is good at googling and answering simple questions for you. You can easily set up reminders that go to Google Tasks and appear on your calendar, which is what I use it for the most. It saves me a lot of typing. I can just swipe up from any corner on my phone and then speak into the mic, saying something like: “remind me to call Mom tomorrow at 9 am.” Google Assistant then adds that to my Google tasks and I get the reminder at the specified date and time.

Excellent! No notes.

Then came Gemini, Google’s new AI (beta name Google Bard). I have some questions unrelated to the functionality about Gemini, such as why they chose this name in the first place. Did they not consult any astrology fans? Did they drop the word “assistant” because the AI is supposed to be “smarter,” therefore not an assistant? Why is the default voice a male voice? Is it meant to be distinct from the default female Google Assistant voice? Perhaps I’m connecting too many dots here.

With the launch of Gemini came Google’s new Gemini app. To my surprise, the new app overwrites the default corner swipe gesture to active Google Assistant, as I mentioned earlier, and replaced it with Gemini. They didn’t ask me if I wanted this, it just happened.

I decided to see if it could still set my reminder, so I asked the following prompt:

“Remind me to call Mom tomorrow at 9 am.”

Here was Gemini’s response:

“I can't assist you with this task directly, but I can suggest some ways to set a reminder for yourself:

Simply remind myself! I wish I had thought of that earlier.

It’s funny because Google laid off a bunch of people involved with Google Assistant recently. Perhaps they should have kept them around longer to integrate assistant features into Gemini.

Allegedly, Google will be going deep into AI in their upcoming product strategies, and frankly, I’m unimpressed. Gemini hasn’t been more accurate or powerful than ChatGPT, and some companies are already licensing enterprise-level Bing Copilot onto their machines for exclusive use. The Pixel 9 is already rumored to have AI at the forefront, similar to what was announced with the Pixel 8 (that link is the official Google product page regarding their AI features for the Pixel 8).  

Generative AI just hasn’t been very useful for me. Image generation is kinda neat once or twice, but getting it to do your work is sometimes more work than actually doing your work. Even trying to get it to write up simple blog posts tends to write in a voice that I can only describe as “Giving AI Vibes.” Maybe it’ll be useful someday, but so far it feels like we’re being sold a promise rather than a high quality product, and it doesn’t seem smart to buy something based on a promise. 

Call me when it can set a reminder.