Google has set out three tentpoles for Gemini: personal, proactive, and powerful. The company made big strides on the first pillar with Personal Intelligence, but there’s a very obvious blind spot with messaging.
Personal Intelligence today can hyper-personalize your responses by tapping into:
- Google Workspace: Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Keep, Tasks
- Google Photos
- YouTube: Watch history
- Search services: Including Search, Shopping, News, Maps, Google Flights and Hotels
If you even casually use Google services, that is a lot for Gemini (and AI Mode) to work with. Gmail offers your receipts and payments, while Google Photos provides a wealth of real-world information about your preferences.
However, while a lot of documentation happens in Gmail, it does not capture your social connections and more impromptu events that are unlikely to become a Calendar entry. A wealth of information is casually shared in chats: photos, logistics, addresses, current locations, links, YouTube videos, etc.
On Android, there is a fairly straightforward solution. Google Messages can offer an opt-in Personal Intelligence toggle to let Gemini access your conversations. I think a good feature for the app’s proactive tentpole is resurfacing all the things that people send you in one place.
But then there’s the issue of third-party apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. Google might be able to strike deals with some services, but I doubt the Meta-owned service will play ball here. They, of course, have their own AI ambitions and the corpus of personal knowledge contained in messaging is a competitive advantage.
This access problem increases tenfold on the iPhone.
Google’s failure to be a major player in messaging for the past decade or so is a pain point and hurdle for the future.
To not re-litigate the past too much, Google should have tried harder to acquire WhatsApp and/or not given up on the concept of Hangouts. Specifically, splitting up text and video messaging has not worked out well. People today just use whatever video calling service is available with their chat app.
Worse was the decision to abandon Google Duo’s personal user base for Google Meet. Android today just doesn’t have a video solution as ubiquitous as FaceTime. Meet genuinely has cool AI-powered features from note-taking to translation that could be helpful for personal usage, like summarizing calls and creating to-dos if you’re planning a trip. However, people are simply not there for non-work conversations.
Google Messages and RCS today are perfectly fine. However, I would still prefer a messaging service that looks more like Google Chat where your email address (or other non-phone number username) serves as your identifier for better portability and cross-platform access.
Google Chat today can be fully used by personal accounts. The personal experience is identical to the enterprise one, and being in the mold of Slack is a non-starter for personal usage.
For Gemini to reach its full potential, Google must solve messaging. On Android, a Google Messages integration should be fairly straightforward. I’d assume striking partnerships with third parties for access is better than trying to build another messaging app, but who knows.
What I do know is that Google cannot leave messaging unsolved if it wants to build a personal assistant for everyone.
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