AI on your Wrist
ChatGPT has arrived for Wear OS smartwatches (it is also available for Apple watches) and is available for download from the Play Store. The Chat app supports voice controls, but does not yet interact with other apps on your watch. Rather, it’s a more advanced search for more complex questions. As such, it is arguably better than Google Assistant, which often provides links to internet resources, rather than truly answering the question. Having said that, the use case is questionable, beyond ticking the innovation box for showing that watches are staying current with new tech. Why questionable? Well, the answers are often quite long, requiring scrolling, and this is really an app better suited to a smartphone than the small screen of a watch.
The NPD Take:
- Until ChatGPT (or whichever variation) is integrated into the other apps on the watch, it remains a “cute” feature rather than a useful one. Indeed, what we really want to see is an integration of AI into Google Assistant that works with all installed apps on the watch – or the phone for that matter.
- The current “assistants” such as Siri and Google Assistant remain limited in what they can do. Take, for example, voice interaction with mapping: in a world where driving navigation should all be hands free, changes to your route often still require physical interaction with the map app, rather than voice controls. Combining these assistants with better AI certainly holds the promise of greater voice solutions – and therefore more use cases – moving forward.