Gemini can trigger smart home routines based on what your cameras see.
Google is updating Gemini for Home, its version of its AI assistant for smart homes, with new camera-based automation, reliability improvements, and an updated version of the Google Home app. Gemini for Home launched in Early Access in October 2025, and replaces Google Assistant on Google’s smart home cameras, speakers, doorbells, and displays.
At I/O 2026, Google expanded its Google Home Gemini built-in program to make it easier for companies to create compatible cameras and speakers. That focus on the cameras was no accident; The biggest change the company is bringing now is the ability to create automation around what your camera sees using Gemini. Gemini for Home can already identify events like a package being dropped or glass being broken, and now those visual insights can trigger a smart home routine.
“To set these up, you just need to use simple, natural language prompts to describe the exact event you want to trigger the automation, and choose which cameras should look for it,” Google says. “By combining the limitless flexibility of Gemini’s visual intelligence with devices in your Google Home ecosystem, whatever your camera sees can now become triggers that choreograph your entire home.”
As part of these updates, Google has also improved the performance and reliability of the AI Assistant. Gemini for Home should have the extended ability to understand and execute multiple requests made at the same time, and accept more informal language when you make them. Google says Gemini will also mistakenly claim it can’t perform tasks less frequently and has a better understanding of the alarms and timers you’ve enabled. Finally, Apple Music subscribers can once again use the streaming service on Google Home devices and the Google Home app has been updated to make it easier to add familiar faces and submit feedback.
Google says these new features are available to all existing users (unless they have an Enterprise or Family Link child account) in the 19 countries and languages in which Gemini for Home has launched. The big component still missing from Google’s big smart home plans is an updated Google Home speaker. The new smart speaker was announced in October 2025 and was supposed to ship in spring 2026, but Google hasn’t made it available for order yet.
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