You can’t go a week without hearing about how AI is changing technology, and while it can be bad news, some of it can be helpful.
The whole point of artificial intelligence is that it’s supposed to help, evolving the assistant technologies we’ve seen over the years from mere dumb follow-the-directions assistants into something a lot more useful overall.
Not all AI is useful, but that’s the point, and it’s something smart speakers have often struggled with, simply following the directions rather than supplying actual information you can use.
But there are changes on the horizon, with AI Siri likely to make a dent on HomePods in the near future, and Google ready with its own return.
That return comes in the form of the Google Home Speaker, or more specifically, a smallish speaker that looks a little like a HomePod Mini interpreted through the lens of Google.
It’s a whole new speaker for Google, though, designed to be balanced and using 360 degree sound, improving the audio on the Nest Mini with twice the size of the driver, and supporting stereo pairing. With two speakers and a Google TV streamer, the system supports spatial and surround audio, provided your streaming platform does, as well. That’s a little like what Apple does with two HomePods.
If you have existing Nest or Google speakers, it will work with those, too, turning the speakers into a multiroom system, but not necessarily the spatial one. You’ll need the two proper 2026 Google Home speakers for that.
And perhaps mostly importantly, it will have a new smart assistant, as the Google Assistant is replaced by Google Gemini, providing a way to connect to the web, have conversations about searches and research, add reminders, and generally just work.
It’s a good thing, too, with the old Nest Hub and Home models ageing poorly and barely responding at the best of times, often providing results that do nothing and simply resorting to search. The once useful addition in the kitchen is little more than a talking egg timer, which Gemini could fix.
The catch in all of this is that aside for the cost of the speaker, talking to Gemini could also cost you more. AI can get expensive, and a few years in, it’s now more of a subscription feature rather than an included extra.
For buyers of the 2026 Home speaker before September 30, Google will include access to Home Premium for six months, which will provide access to converse without a lot of restrictions, though after the trial, Gemini will become a little shorter, less conversational, and basically be a marginally smarter assistant, it seems. It’s just one more subscription you’ll have to factor in, it seems.
By itself, the Google Home will cost $199, but will be available by the end of the month, found online and at stores across Australia.
