Siri, Assistant, Gemini and Celia are among the virtual assistants that have been provided to smartphones for years. Existing virtual assistant users must know the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system. Yesterday, Google shared a new video of Project Astra, an omnidirectional virtual assistant powered by artificial intelligence (AI) Gemini 2.0.
Project Astra was first shown during Google I/O in May. In the video above, its ability to understand audio, text, images and symbols is used to assist users. Among the things it can do is read emails and then find codes to unlock doors.
It can also understand symbols on clothes to know the correct washing technique before looking at the buttons on the washing machine and tell you what settings to use to avoid damage. Astra's real capabilities are to become a virtual assistant for smart glasses with various commands given only by using voice.
Astra's features are similar to the ChatGPT voice mode capabilities that were also shown off this year. What is certain is that both of these virtual assistants are better when compared to those used on the Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin.