‘We’re bringing the watch closer to the rest of the Android family.’ Google I/O may have put Wear OS 7 on the sidelines, but an important new update is quietly rolling out – and it’s about artificial intelligence
While Google’s I/O keynote was packed with announcements of big changes to Google Search and Gemini, and features designed to usher in the age of the ‘agentic web’, we didn’t hear much about wearables. However, Google is bringing some changes to Wear OS 7 for users of the top Android watches, with the rollout set to begin later this year, although an exact date has not been specified.
For starters, Google’s Gemini Intelligence, its comprehensive, personal AI assistant, is coming to Wear OS as well as the rest of the Android family. You’ll be able to interact with Gemini on your wrist as well as on your Android phone, and get the same agent assistance that Google spent most of its keynote promising.
Android’s Live Updates feature is coming to watches. This innovative Android phone feature offers an overview of important updates about an ongoing task, such as a pizza order or turn-by-turn directions. You now get a timeline on your watch with a small square marker tracking its progress, along with an overview of your order’s status, a countdown to your next turn or other handy updates.
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Google is also working on an AppFunctions API (for those who don’t know, API stands for ‘application programming interface’) which will allow developers to “integrate their apps with agents and assistants, like Google Gemini”.
Using a smartwatch’s microphone, users can issue a voice command and a custom-built AI agent will take it from there and perform tasks for them. Skilled.
According to Google, users will also “be able to invoke and track automated app tasks, for select phone apps, right from their watch, like placing an order with DoorDash!” This feature will be implemented without the need for development flicker, suggesting that Google sees voice as the future of watches.
Google isn’t the only smartwatch maker anticipating AI interaction in this way — Coros is also prioritizing voice as a key way to interact with AI from wearables, with CEO Lewis Wu suggesting a future-proof smartwatch is one with a microphone.
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There’s also a new standardized Wear Workout Tracker feature that will be part of future workout apps, making it easy for fitness app developers to add things like media controls to their on-watch interfaces. Speaking of media controls, it’s also getting an update to automatically control launch when you press Play – so if you start playing a song on Spotify, for example, the controls will automatically appear on your Pixel Watch 4.
Finally, expect battery life on Wear OS watches to improve by around 10%, meeting our predictions and helping them perform all these new AI-powered tasks.
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