AI for Smart Homes: Google’s Gemini for Home Announcement Reflects Wider Industry Optimism for AI

In August 2025, Google announced that it will replace its existing Google Assistant platform with the more powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant, Gemini for Home, in its smart displays and speakers. This AI boost will enable Google smart home products, such as the Nest smart displays, speakers, thermostats, etc., to process more difficult commands and provide advanced home assistance—some examples provided include understanding the existing ingredients in your fridge and providing recipe ideas.

This announcement also reflects Google’s overall commitment to transforming the smart home industry. In May 2025, Google reported that its Google Home Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), initially announced at Google I/O 2024, have expanded to more than 750 million devices, with the company showcasing more case examples of industry players successfully leveraging Home APIs, such as First Alert, Yale, Cync, iRobot, Motorola, and Tuya Smart. The company also announced that it is integrating Gemini capabilities with Google Home APIs, and that an early access program for Gemini-powered Home APIs will be launched in 2025.

Google is not the only smart home vendor looking at the use of AI integration to drive smart home adoption. At IFA 2025, multiple vendors were keen to display their AI-based smart home solutions and products:

• Aqara displayed its new lineup of AI-enabled solutions, including: 1) doorbells with AI-powered cameras for object detection; 2) updates to its Aqara Home app with a new AI-based feature, Soft Sensor, to calculate room occupancy; and 3) advanced AI capabilities on its cloud-based platform HomeGuardian.
• Haier showcased its AI-based refrigerator solution, which is able to track food types and movement within the refrigerator.
• Samsung Electronics showcased its Smart Modular Home solution, which combines AI-enabled appliances and Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems via its SmartThings platform. Key components of Samsung’s solution include: 1) a wall-mounted panel with real-time status updates of various appliances in the home; 2) smart home automation across lights, door locks, HVAC systems, and cleaning robots; 3) smart energy management; and 4) scene management.
• SwitchBot introduced a series of new AI-based products, including 1) the SwitchBot AI Hub, which adds both on-device and cloud-based AI features; 2) its AI Art Frame, which can generate artworks based on user prompts; and 3) companion robots that can utilize AI to recognize human faces and emotions, and learn its users’ lifestyle routines.

There are signs that show the revenue potential for AI integration. For example, Alphabet reported a strong 32% Year-over-Year (YoY) growth for its Google Cloud services in 2Q 2025, driven by a solid performance from Google Cloud Platform (GCP) products, AI Infrastructure, and Generative AI Solutions. Similarly, Amazon announced a 13% YoY increase in net sales for 2Q 2025, with the company also mentioning strong uptake for its next-generation AI-powered virtual assistant, Alexa+. However, not all companies are seeing similar success with AI integration. For example, some sources report that Apple is considering integrating AI technology from Anthropic or OpenAI to support its Siri platform, a move that highlights the challenges of developing robust in-house Large Language Models (LLMs). In light of the above, ABI Research has identified some recommendations below that smart home vendors could consider when looking to integrate AI capabilities in their solutions:

• Use Open-Source Models: Rather than creating LLMs from scratch, smart home vendors can consider the practicality of using open-sourced models, such as LLaMA 3, Gemma 2, Mistral AI, Qwen1.5, etc. This enables companies to quickly scale up their AI capabilities, while also typically keeping costs low. However, a key limitation of this approach is that companies will require some in-house expertise to manage and customize the model to fit their own needs and requirements.
• Partner with Key Ecosystem Players: Similar to the approach being considered by Apple, smart home vendors can also consider working with specialized AI solution providers to build customized models for their needs. Due to this highly customized nature of this approach, these models tend to support enhanced performance and features, which may be useful for a company trying to create a distinctive edge with AI. However, this approach tends to be more costly compared to the open-source approach.
• Address True Pain Points of Customers: Regardless of the approach chosen above, another key consideration is ensuring that the AI features developed do provide real value to end users. Vendors need to conduct in-depth research studies of user behavior to better understand: 1) the needs of their customers; 2) how AI can help alleviate these pain points; and 3) a cost-benefit analysis on introducing these AI features. Ideally, the value that AI can bring about should outweigh the costs of development and implementation.