We ask Gemini and Alexa to track cats and give advice

For better or worse, Amazon Alexa and Google Home's smart voice assistants have been imbued with the powers of generative AI. The promise is that you can use natural language with your smart speaker to adjust your thermostat, lock the doors, and find out what your pets have been up to. The reality is smart home voice assistants seem to be going through an identity crisis. Senior reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy invites Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel onto his own podcast to compare notes on life with Alexa Plus vs. Gemini for Home. Further reading: ⁠GTA VI keeps leaking ahead of its gameplay premiere⁠ ⁠I bought DJI’s banned camera — it was cheap and easy⁠ ⁠Does giving a camera wings dodge the FCC’s drone ban?⁠ ⁠Meta glasses are a workplace menace⁠ ⁠Google’s Pet Memory forgot who my cats are⁠ ⁠I tasked Alexa Plus with tackling my to-do list — it was hit or miss⁠ ⁠With Alexa Plus, Amazon finally reinvents its best product⁠ ⁠How AI broke the smart home in 2025⁠ ⁠I let Gemini watch my family for the weekend — it got weird⁠ ⁠Google built a great smart speaker, but Gemini isn’t ready for it⁠ ⁠Jony Ive’s first OpenAI gadget is reportedly a hockey puck-sized smart speaker⁠ Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Episoder(1082)

Phones don't have lights

Meta's Muse AI agent is cute (sometimes caked-up) and it performs well as a productivity tool. And, if you give it access to your social media and e-mail, it can know basically everything about you. T...

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Meta and Snap battle for your face

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24 Sep 31min

Hotline: Folding phones in cars, EVs in Mexico

Transportation editor Andrew Hawkins is here to answer your questions about the confluence of cars and gadgets. Could a folding phone replace a dashboard display? What to do about the iPhone Pro Max n...

23 Sep 28min

DLSS 5 explained, with Linus Tech Tips

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22 Sep 36min

Googlebooks are coming for your Mac

We tried out the new Googlebooks, which are essentially Chromebooks evolved with an Android elemental stone. They're made by Dell, Lenovo, HP, Acer, and Asus (not Google), but all have the new Googleb...

21 Sep 33min

The real story of the iPhone 18 Pro's camera

This week's iPhone 18 Pro discourse made aperture a priority, but today on Vergecast we zoom out to talk about the state of smart phone photography at large. Executive editor Jake Kastrenakes, guest h...

18 Sep 1h 29min

Apple's new iPhones and Watches are better than the last ones

Senior reviewers Allison Johnson and Victoria Song trade host and guest duties in a Vergecasting ouroboros that's never been attempted before and will probably never be attempted again. Allison talks ...

17 Sep 46min

Your AI apocalypse questions, answered

Last week, an Anthropic researcher resigned and posted on X, "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." These warnings are nothing new, but this one...

16 Sep 31min