Google Opens Gemini to Other Companies' Smart Home Services

Google is letting other companies use its Gemini AI technology in their own smart home products and services. Companies like ADT and AT&T have already started building Google's technology into their home security and broadband offerings. This is a significant shift for Google, which has spent years trying to make money from smart home hardware but has faced consistent losses in that business.

The move allows partners to add Google Home Premium features—things like AI conversations and automated home controls—directly into their own apps and service packages. Google launched the premium tier to replace its older Nest Aware service, with two pricing options: a Standard Plan for $10 per month or $100 per year, and an Advanced Plan for $20 per month or $200 per year. If you already subscribe to Google AI Pro or Ultra, these services integrate for free or at a reduced cost. AI Pro members get the Standard plan and can upgrade to Advanced for $10 more each month, while AI Ultra subscribers get the Advanced tier included.

Gemini Replaces Google Assistant

Google is now using Gemini instead of Google Assistant across all its smart home devices. Over the next year, Gemini will be rolled out to every Google-made smart speaker, display, camera, and doorbell that's at least a decade old. This fundamentally changes how people interact with Google's smart home ecosystem.

The Standard Plan gives you hands-free conversations with Gemini Live, automation help through a feature called Ask Home, 30 days of video history storage, and smarter camera alerts. The Advanced tier adds more AI-powered notifications, daily Home Brief summaries, and the ability to search through your video archives—features designed to justify paying a monthly fee where hardware sales have never been very profitable.

Why Google Is Making This Move

Google's decision comes at a time when the entire smart home industry is struggling to make money. Amazon has reported losing more than $25 billion on its Alexa speakers between 2017 and 2021, and Google itself has struggled to turn a profit from its large investment in Nest products, despite having millions of devices in homes.

When Amazon first launched Echo speakers, the strategy was to sell them cheaply (or at a loss) and make money from the services people would use with them—like shopping or music. The company got hundreds of millions of devices into homes, but never figured out how to turn that into real profits. Most people just use their smart speakers for basic things like setting timers, checking the weather, or playing music. Those activities don't make much money.

The broader context here is that Google is shifting from trying to sell hardware directly to licensing its technology to other companies. By letting partners like ADT and AT&T use Gemini in their services, Google can make money from subscriptions without having to pay for advertising or subsidize device costs. Partners benefit too: they get advanced AI features without building the technology themselves, and they can offer it to their existing customers without disrupting their billing or service setup.

This strategy mirrors a pattern we've seen before in technology. When companies moved from selling just Windows software to licensing it broadly, when Google licensed Android to phone makers, or when Amazon opened AWS to everyone—the companies doing the licensing typically made higher profits and reached more people, though they gave up some direct control over the customer relationship. Google's smart home licensing approach fits this playbook.

How the Technology Works

Google has designed its Home API—the technical framework that lets partners connect to Gemini—to be modular. This means partners like ADT can pick and choose which AI features they want to use, rather than having to adopt everything. ADT can build smarter security monitoring. AT&T can bundle smart home AI into its broadband packages. Each company uses what matters for its customers, without major engineering headaches.

What This Could Mean Going Forward

Google's move suggests the company has accepted that making money in smart homes requires reaching many customers through many different services, not just selling devices directly. By putting Gemini into the hands of companies that already have millions of customers, Google might finally see meaningful subscription adoption—something it hasn't achieved through hardware sales alone.

For the broader smart home market, this licensing approach could speed up how quickly AI features reach consumers. Right now, smart home ecosystems are fragmented: Amazon has Alexa, Google has Gemini, Apple has Siri. When partners can license advanced AI from Google, they don't have to wait for each company to innovate at its own pace. Customers get better features faster, and Google makes recurring revenue.

In my view, what Google is doing here likely influences what Amazon and Apple decide to do next. If Google's licensing model works—if partners actually adopt it and subscribers stick with it—you'll probably see Amazon opening Alexa in similar ways, and Apple reconsidering its locked-down approach. Given how much money the industry has lost on smart home hardware, Google may be showing the path that ultimately works.