Changing the voice of your AI assistant
It's really like replacing a member of the family
When is it the right time to change the voice of your digital assistant?
Is there ever really a good time to ditch someone who has potentially become an indispensable part of your daily routine?
I can't say I have the definitive answer to this. But I do have some thoughts that have bubbled up recently.
For years, I was happy using Google Assistant on my phones and smart speakers around my house. The assistant was just called "Google". It didn't really have a specific personality, gender, or vibe. It was just a friendly personification of the search service I'd been using for years. Consider it another way to get that same information that used to just be shown to me on screen. Now it had earned a voice.
I never really thought about liking or disliking the voice. It just felt comfortable and appropriate. I did look down on other voices from Siri or Alexa. Or at least I thought it felt strange when those voices became overly feminine or masculine. It was bizarre when my wife's phone would talk to her in an Australian accent or something. It just felt more natural for this helper to be as accent-agnostic as possible. Google Assistant didn't live in Australia, they just lived in our technology right? Why give it more thought than that?
That assistant voice helped me for years and I didn't give it much thought. But of course AI has to change everything. When Google started its push to replace Assistant with the new Gemini AI, there were new voices. You couldn't use Gemini with the default assistant voice. You had to make a choice. What did you want your new assistant to sound like?
I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds this process excruciating. It may sound silly but it almost feels like you have a room of actual human beings auditioning for you. You listen back to overanalyze the way they say whatever default phrase is used for the process. It's usually something like "Hi, I'm your assistant!". Are they too eager? Does the voice remind you too much of someone from your past? Do you want them to sound like your best bud or more like a subordinate who aims to please? There are some deep considerations at play here.
For Gemini, I ended up choosing a male voice that just kinda sounded like a casual middle-of-the-road choice that didn't really bring up any personal feelings. He didn't seem overly eager to serve. His voice wasn't too high or low pitched. He sounded intelligent but not like he was trying too hard. Apparently Google found it appropriate to name it “Pegasus” and describes it as an “engaged, deeper voice”. Sure, I guess that’s accurate enough. Pegasus has felt very natural in all of my Gemini Live interactions and I've been mostly pleased with the experience.
But when my Nest Hub Max display got an update and asked me to change its assistant voice, I was faced with a whole new dilemma. For some unspeakable reason, the voice I chose for Gemini wasn't available to use on the smart display. Maybe it's Google just trying to differentiate the voice on your smart display from the voice on your phone? Maybe Pegasus just doesn’t want to work that much. Who knows? But I had to pick a new voice.
So I went with a female to change things up from my male Gemini assistant. Apologies for not remembering the exact name that Google gave to this voice. It's kinda strange to give the voice an actual name but then still refer to it solely as "Gemini" or "Google".
I think the female voice is the one that is closest to Scarlett Johansson. With all of the attention she got from the movie "Her", I feel like I tried to chose a different voice but I just couldn't. Johansson may not be happy about being the default standard for assistant voices, but it's hard to argue that it's a pretty pleasant voice to be greeted by.
But the voice is by no means perfect. The way it says "Hi!" in the morning is just a little bit too chipper and high-pitched for my liking. Sometimes I miss the neutral vibes I got from the old Google Assistant voice. It really is kinda like replacing a member of your family.
My wife and I have joked about what our kids voices will be like when they grow up. I'm sure many parents have had the same discussions. Babies and toddlers have cute high-pitched squeals that eventually morph into a steady "kid voice" for lack of a better term. Then they hit puberty before somewhat settling into their voice for the rest of their lives. Or will it be the voice they use for the rest of our their lives? Will we one day be changing our own voices as quickly as we change the speaking tones of our digital assistants?
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