Google TV gets a new AI-powered feature update, but it's not for everyone

Your Google TV box or Chromecast might have received a new feature update – here's what it does

Google TV Streamer review shot
(Image credit: Rik Henderson / Future)
Quick Summary

Google has started to rollout a feature it announced at CES.

Called "News Briefs", it is designed to present an summarised overview of top news stories from the day.

Google announced a flurry of new smart home products in late summer last year, including a new Google Nest Thermostat and new Google TV Streamer. And it is the latter that is getting a new feature soon – it might even have arrived on your device already, in fact.

The experimental feature is called "News Briefs" and is powered by Gemini. It was unveiled during Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month and, as reported by 9to5Google, it's now starting to roll out to some Google TV products.

What is Google News Briefs?

News Briefs is designed to pull together major news stories that happen throughout any given day, with Gemini summarising the story. It also offers video sources – predominantly YouTube – around the topic.

According to Google's support page: "Using Gemini models and human evaluation, News Briefs presents overviews of the top news stories, and surfaces related YouTube videos from trusted news sources for you to learn more.

"Briefs are updated with top stories throughout the day so you can easily keep up with the latest news."

What's interesting is that this roll out comes just a few days after Apple confirmed that it is temporarily pulling its Notification Summary feature for news and entertainment apps, which is also in the business of summarising.

The Notification Summary feature on iPhone and iPad uses Apple Intelligence to summarise various notifications for individual apps. For news, there were instances where headlines were summarised incorrectly and news outlets criticised the feature for spreading what could be considered misinformation.

The report on 9to5Google said the Google TV News Briefs feature won't be widely available to begin with, though if you are one of the ones in the US who is getting it, you'll find it in the "For You" page of Google TV.

TOPICS
Britta O'Boyle

Britta is a freelance technology journalist who has been writing about tech for over a decade. She's covered all consumer tech from phones, tablets and wearables to smart home and beauty tech, with everything in between. She has a fashion journalism degree from London College of Fashion and previously did a long stint as deputy editor of Pocket-lint, but you’ll now find her byline on several titles including GQ, the Express, the Mirror, TechRadar, Stuff and iMore. You'll never find her without her Apple Watch on, aiming to complete her rings so she can justify the extra bar of chocolate and she loves a good iPhone trick.