Over the last seven years, Google Assistant has helped hundreds of millions of people get things done in a natural, conversational way — setting alarms, asking for weather updates or making quick calls — all with a simple “Hey Google.”

Now, generative AI is creating new opportunities to build a more intuitive, intelligent, personalized digital assistant. One that extends beyond voice, understands and adapts to you and handles personal tasks in new ways. We think your digital assistant should make it even easier to manage the big and small items on your to-do list — like planning your next trip, finding details buried in your inbox, creating a grocery list for your weekend getaway or sending a text. All like a true assistant would.

We recently publicly introduced Assistant with Gemini; a personal assistant powered by generative AI. It combines Gemini’s generative and reasoning capabilities with Assistant’s personalized help. You can interact with it through text, voice or images — and it can even help take actions for you. In the coming months, you’ll be able to access it on Android and iOS mobile devices.

More information will be available after launch.

Rolling out now on Android Auto, get ready for a streamlined navigation experience with Google Assistant. We've removed the distracting overlay to provide a seamless map view that prioritizes your driving safety while keeping you informed.

Key Updates

Uncluttered Map Display: Enjoy a clean and focused view of your route without the visual distraction of an overlay.

Integrated Information: Google Assistant delivers essential navigation data like estimated travel time, distance, and ETA in a reflowed format for quick reference.

Glow: The new interaction UI mirrors the refreshed Google Assistant branding seen across your home devices.

This update brings a modern and user-friendly touch to Android Auto navigation, helping you stay focused on the road while getting the directions you need.

DescriptioWhile communication is currently the most popular use case for the Assistant while driving (for example, read message CUJ accounts for 47% of AAP traffic), UXR shows that users still regularly use their communication apps on their phones, which poses safety risks and results in lower platform penetration.

Among the 68 million daily incoming messages on AAP, users only read 3% of messages through Assistant. Besides the common user understanding issue, Assistant fell short in complex messages (demo video), such as multiple messages, group messages, and long messages. For example, for group messages, accounting for 40% of all incoming messages, Assistant reads each message in the thread sequentially (demo video), which is ineffective and sometimes disruptive. UXR indicates that users want Assistant to recognize and read only important messages.

Here we introduce message summary feature that highlights the most important information, so users can easily consume the messages and respond appropriately. As a result, we expect higher user engagement and platform penetration.

Amazon Alexa Auto brings the features of the company's popular home voice assistant to the car, allowing it to manage not only vehicle functions but also devices in your home that support Amazon Alexa.

Unlike factory-embedded voice response systems, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, adding Amazon Alexa Auto to even an older car is simple and cheap using Amazon's Echo Auto accessory. You can even move the Echo Auto and other Amazon Alexa Auto devices from car to car. Like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Alexa Auto is constantly updated and links you to the most current information available.

As the first designer on Alexa Auto, I built the design program and had my hands in every implementation on the road today, spanning hundreds of millions of vehicles. You can play with some of my designs in nearly every automaker on the road today.

Auto Mode is a feature in Amazon’s Alexa app that turns your phone into a “driver-friendly display” when used with Alexa auto accessories like the Echo Auto. As well as offering access to Alexa’s typical voice commands, it includes large touchscreen icons that provide access to features like directions, music playback, and making calls.

The driving-focused mode consists of four screens. There’s a Navigation screen which provides shortcuts to favorite locations and will link out to your default navigation app for directions (saying “Alexa, go back to the Alexa app” switches you back to Amazon’s app).

Meanwhile, the Communicate screen gives shortcuts to place calls, Drop In, or make announcements from other Alexa devices (helpful for letting your family know you’re on the way home, Amazon says). The Play screen gives access to media playback. Finally, the Home screen provides shortcuts to frequently used actions.

When I joined Alexa Auto as its first designer, I encountered a chaotic landscape. Automakers were integrating Alexa with vastly different designs, hindering quality control and scalability. With limited resources, I knew we couldn't keep providing one-off support. I took the initiative to develop and launch the Alexa Auto Design Guidelines. These became the essential resource for standardizing implementation, ensuring quality, and establishing a streamlined certification process. While not a traditional design project, this initiative was critical in aligning the organization around clear standards. These guidelines became the definitive standard for implementation, transforming a fragmented process into a streamlined and consistent one.

My design leadership on the 2024 Range Rover Velar infotainment system has generated significant market buzz. Its refined, clean, and modern interface is widely recognized as one of the best infotainment system designs in the industry today.

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Land Rover InControlTM Apps mirrors the driver’s smartphone on the vehicle's Touch-screen. Select approved apps on the connected phone are displayed and can be controlled through the vehicle Touch-screen16.

My device, My apps, My content, My configuration. Land Rover InControlTM Apps allows you to continue to use your phone inside your Land Rover vehicle and not have to learn new systems or create new preferences in each car16.

My role was to design the templates for sports, news, weather, and other inControl Apps available on JLR vehicles today.

CoherenSE® by Altran enables future vehicles to be updated and customized like smartphones.

Developed by Altran and Jaguar Land Rover, CoherenSE® is a solution that accelerates and makes possible advanced software-based automotive features such as autonomous driving. Through a modular approach, it gives a full command and control of the vehicle to manage the growing complexity of systems throughout the product lifetime.

It also contributes to cost and weight reduction by streamlining hardware content, software re-use and feature changes in a more flexible and coherent way.CoherenSE® enables future vehicles to be updated and customized like smartphones today, but with automotive grade quality, safety and cyber security built in.

Amazon's advertising tools were spread across four disjointed platforms, catered to specific advertiser types. This fragmentation caused engineering bottlenecks, inconsistent user experiences, and a lack of insightful performance data. As a result, advertisers struggled to manage campaigns effectively.

These changes led to the successful launch of a seamless campaign manager across seller and vendor portals. This unified experience remains in use today.

As David Fildes, Director of Investor Relations, noted, the improvements to our advertising platform can be directly linked to the significant increase in Amazon Ads Revenue

User feedback revealed major confusion and frustration with Amazon's multi-platform campaign creation process. I spearheaded the redesign of the Amazon Ads campaign builder. My user-centric approach, informed by in-depth research, resulted in a drastic simplification of the process. This solution has stood the test of time, remaining in use for over six years and garnering widespread praise.