To hear Google tell it, no one form factor is going to reign supreme.
“Any religion you have now is probably premature,” says Rishi Chandra, Google’s VP of Fitbit and Health, when I ask what form factors Google is betting on for Gemini.
“There’s no doubt in my mind, there’s going to be new form factors that will exist. But I think it’s too early to have conviction. What’s interesting is the AI is moving so fast that any point of view you have on the hardware could change very quickly.”
Instead, Chandra says Google’s leaning into the spaghetti-ness of it all. Some of that is an openness to experimentation. You only need to look at Android XR, its nascent platform for smart glasses, to see that. The other half is to “maximize the devices you already have.” The phone is a starting point. The smartwatch and earbuds are natural extensions, but the full potential of AI hardware has yet to be unlocked. The hope, Waraich says, is that by experimenting and maximizing, you end up with a winning combination that hasn’t been seen just yet.
“The future will be a very diverse set of accessories that people may choose to have that work for them, that’s personalized for them, in their environment and what they care about,” explains Chandra. “Our job is to make it all work [together] so it doesn’t matter.”
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