Google unveils AI-powered news summary TV

• Published On: 07 January 2025 at 21:17

At CES 2025, Google unveiled the latest version of its TV operating system, which includes an innovative news summary tool powered by the company's Gemini AI Assistant.

The new "News Brief" feature lets users catch up on the day's most important stories by simply asking Gemini to play their news brief. The AI assistant will then pull headlines from reputable news sources and YouTube channels, producing a concise summary of the most important news events.

Google intends to release these Gemini AI capabilities to both new and existing Google TV devices by the end of 2025.

This move represents a significant step for Google into the increasingly contentious field of AI-generated news summaries. The tech industry has faced legal challenges, with media organisations suing companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity over claims that AI tools are using their content without proper licensing or attribution.

Despite these challenges, the push for AI-powered news summaries continues. Apple and Google have faced criticism for errors in their AI systems—Apple's AI misreported a BBC article about tennis star Rafael Nadal, while Google's Gemini AI has previously been criticised for generating false or misleading information, including suggesting users put glue on their pizza.

While Google had previously avoided incorporating AI news summaries into its products, preferring to direct users to Google Search, the company is now using Gemini for this purpose. Notably, the News Brief feature does not show the sources of the content it summarises, but it does include relevant YouTube videos.

The News Brief is part of Google's larger vision for an interactive television experience. Future Google TVs will include sensors that detect when users enter a room, and users will be able to ask their TVs to search for shows, films, or YouTube videos in natural language.