After a summer wrestling with smart home AI, The Verge's Nilay Patel delivers a reality check on artificial intelligence's biggest consumer promise. Despite massive investments from Apple, Amazon, and Google, AI assistants still struggle with basic home automation tasks that should be their sweet spot. The gap between AI hype and practical utility has never been more apparent.
The promise was seductive: talk to your house like you talk to a friend, and watch AI orchestrate your entire digital life. But after months of real-world testing, The Verge's editorial team is delivering an uncomfortable truth about the state of AI assistants in 2025.
On this week's Vergecast episode, editor-at-large Nilay Patel shares his summer-long experiment with AI-powered smart home control. The results paint a sobering picture of an industry that's promised everything but delivered surprisingly little where it matters most.
"Large language models are currently everyone's solution to everything," Patel observes in the episode. "The technology's versatility is part of its appeal: the use cases for generative AI seem both huge and endless. But then you use the stuff, and not enough of it works very well."
The disconnect is particularly stark in smart homes, where AI assistants should theoretically excel. These are controlled environments with predictable commands and clear outcomes. Yet Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Assistant routinely stumble on tasks as basic as turning on lights or adjusting thermostats.
Patel's experience echoes broader consumer frustration with AI assistants that promise omniscience but deliver inconsistency. While OpenAI's ChatGPT and similar models can engage in sophisticated conversations, that entertainment value doesn't translate to the reliable, contextual assistance users actually need in their daily routines.
The timing of this critique is particularly pointed, coming as major tech companies double down on AI integration across their product lines. Apple just unveiled its new M5-powered MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro, positioning these devices as AI-first computing platforms.
