The arrival of generative AI assistants in our smart homes held such promise; instead, they struggle to turn on the lights.

This morning, I asked my Alexa-enabled Bosch coffee machine to make me a coffee. Instead of running my routine, it told me it couldn’t do that. Ever since I upgraded to Alexa Plus, Amazon’s generative-AI-powered voice assistant, it has failed to reliably run my coffee routine, coming up with a different excuse almost every time I ask.

It’s 2025, and AI still can’t reliably control my smart home. I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.

The potential for generative AI and large language models to take the complexity out of the smart home, making it easier to set up, use, and manage connected devices, is compelling. So is the promise of a “new intelligence layer” that could unlock a proactive, ambient home.

But this year has shown me that we are a long way from any of that. Instead, our reliable but limited voice assistants have been replaced with “smarter” versions that, while better conversationalists, can’t consistently do basic tasks like operating appliances and turning on the lights. I want to know why.

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~tech