I wasn’t an early adopter of chatbots. The messaging metaphor didn’t appeal to me as someone who saw chatting as something you only do with other people.
The late 2010s embrace of bots by tech companies was annoying given how easily you could break the illusion of “intelligence.” Meanwhile, the first-generation smart assistants (Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri) were somewhat more palatable to me because the exchange mostly involved shouting commands and just expecting actions in return instead of information.
As such, I was predisposed to not like the first LLM chatbots, and still did not want to spend time talking with something that wasn’t real.
Things started to change around Gemini 2.5 Pro, when Google’s offering became more capable. It was initially just a powerful utility that was good at finding and transforming data/text that would have been tedious to do manually.
Recently, I’ve started to see Gemini 3 Pro as more than another tool.
The interaction that inspired this involved using Gemini to get product recommendations in a style-related area that I’m unfamiliar with. Long story short, the conclusion of the chat had me go to a store to try the different options. After that was done, I told Gemini which one I chose.
It was after this exchange that I realized my relationship with this technology was changing.
Even a year ago, I would not have spent the time or felt the need to tell a chatbot which of its choices I went with. On reflection, I did that to log my preference so that Gemini was aware of it for future reference.
Another area where I shared my preferences with Gemini was music. I currently have a chat where I give it the songs I’m listening to on repeat, and Gemini makes interesting connections about mood and lyrics, while providing rather accurate recommendations on what to listen to next.
I’m not under the illusion that I’m talking to another person, but what’s on the other end feels different, and something we’ve never had in technology.
This next generation of assistants will be something you want to invite into your life because they are genuinely helpful.
They are something you will want to keep up-to-date. Perhaps you do it manually in a conversation, but it’s better if it happens automatically like with Personal Intelligence when something, like a purchase receipt, hits your inbox.
The Connected Apps aspect of last week’s announcement is getting all the attention, but Google also considers the ability for Gemini to leverage past chats to inform new conversations as part of Personal Intelligence. Both features are paid right now, with plans to make them free. “Past Gemini chats” will probably go free first, and I think this is when people will start to see that the more you talk to something like Gemini, the better it will know you and start returning something very useful.
Similar to Glass, Google nailed the vision for a personal assistant nine years ago. At the first Made by Google event, Sundar Pichai said the “goal is to build a personal Google for each and every user.”
Just like we built a Google for everyone, we want to build each user his or her own individual Google.
“Meet your Google Assistant, your own personal Google” is one of the company’s best product introduction videos. It connected Google’s Search origins to what comes next.
Today, it seems like sometimes it’s easy to feel like you need a little help with the stuff just in your own world — your photos, phone, videos, calendars, messages, friends, trips, reservations, and so on and so on.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had some help with all that?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a Google for your world?
Of course, that didn’t happen with the Google Assistant. But as we near a decade later, what’s coming next with Gemini will.
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