After years of false starts, the promise of ambient intelligence has arrived, but will it be worth the price?

Last week, Amazon and Google kick-started what could be the next chapter of the smart home. Their new voice assistants, Alexa Plus and Gemini for Home, have been rebuilt from the ground up on generative AI and large language models to be more conversational, understand context, and take actions. This marks the biggest shift in home control since the companies launched their original smart speakers over a decade ago.

In the years since, smart home adoption has stalled — because it’s complicated and confusing, and the value isn’t always clear. Google and Amazon are betting on this new wave of AI-powered intelligence to deliver a smarter, simpler, more capable smart home. After spending the last week speaking with folks at both companies and seeing their new hardware and software strategies, I’m hopeful. But I see at least three major hurdles: reliability, speed, and proving it’s worth paying for.

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