Why Microsoft bet on Surface
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of open smart hom standards. I'm my friend David piers, and I am cooked up inside. It's a holiday weekend, but it's like hot and rainy all the same time, and it's just like a nasty time to be outside.

But the upside of that is that means I have an incredible building excuse to just and three days playing video games. That is essentially what has happened. I don't know if i've mentioned this on the show before, but the game over probably the last decade that has eaten up the most of my time is via the socket game.

It's not even called via anymore. It's ea sports fc now. But who cares? It's VISA and I play arguably too much VISA.

I'm like pretty good at IT in a way that i'm not good at a lot of the battery games. I just get crushed IT fourth night and more zone and all of those. But i'm pretty good at VISA.

And I have become alarmingly into IT, especially over the course of this year. Now it's may it's almost june between its end of the soccer season, which means it's almost the end of the fifth season. And I am i'm too deep in IT at this point.

I am in the subject. Its i'm in the trading discord. I spent twenty bucks on a guide to trading players inside of fea to get more coins to buy more players.

It's a lot. I'm deep in IT. It's a whole thing I can tell you who all the leagues are.

If you even want to talk about via and compare ultimate teams, get at me. It's the only thing I ever want to talk about. Luckily for most of you, that is not what we are here to talk about on the show today.

We're going to do two things. One, we're going to talk more about what has gone on with microsoft last couple of weeks. IT was built.

IT was the surface launch, and we have the person who runs windows and surface at microsoft power devilry on the show to talk about both the beginning and end of this project that microsoft has spent on for a long time and what he sees coming for the next decade. Super fund. Really interesting.

Then gent two is gonna on and we're going to do a bit of a round robbin of smart home news because a bunch of stuff has happened, some of which I think is actually bigger than I realized. And we're not gonna dig in all of IT and see you are really going on. Then we're going to go get to the hot line.

We're to talk about search engines. Search engines on everybody y's mind right now, all that is coming up in just a minute. But first fea, it's champs.

If you know what that means, you know that a big deal. If you don't know what that means, stay that way is for the best. But anyway, I got to go play a bunch of fea for some reason. That feels very important to me right now. This is the verge cast will be back.

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Welcome back. I know we've talked a lot about microsoft the last few episodes, but it's because I think this is a big moment for the company. It's pushing really hard on A I everywhere across the company and especially across the products people use. IT just rolled out these new copilot plus pcs that microsoft seems to think might change the way we use our computers forever.

And I mean, microsoft is the most valuable company on earth for a reason, right? But what happened over the last week actually feels to me like both the beginning of a new A I era at microsoft, and in some way, is the end of a decade long project inside of the company. And I wanted to hear from the inside how that moment feels and how we got here. So I called up someone .

who knows I was pavin devilry. I am leader for windows and devices.

Pavin currently runs all things windows in surface inside of microsoft. He's been in that job for a few months, but he's actually been at the company for more than two decades and as a result, has seen just about everything in the windows and surface world in that time. So we started our conversation by going back in time all the way to twenty twelve to the first ever microsoft surface and surface R T.

Back then we weren't talking about A I. We weren't even really talking about laptops. That was the time when everybody kind of thought pcs were dead and phones were going to be the only thing.

You remember that this was supposed to be the end of computers, not the beginning of some grand project for microsoft. But you can draw a line from that moment in twenty twelve with the surface R, T, which was bad all the way to this one, without trying very hard. So twenty twelve, let's go back. What was the big bet behind the surface, particularly the surface R, T.

So our core thesis, you know, at that point in time, you are right, we made an ARM bet. The ARM bet was around modernizing the platform at the end of the day and bringing modern architectures to windows. ARM was a part of IT, for sure.

You know, instruction sets matter obviously for the core of bring system in the APP experiences. But really, the theory of the case for ARM was a modern system, no IT in the entirety. And so what we wanted, yes, great performance.

We want a great, badly life. We aren't security, all the other aspects of warn platforms in that window of time. And so ARM ARM was a big bet. And as you recall for sure, surface R I did bring a new user experience out of be a paradigm table for sure.

Know that winter of time, we were seeing confluence certainly across what is happening in the PC space, in the tablet space and in mobile IT was early days of tablet generation back then? Yes, a lot of those constructs, I think, are still too today for sure. And the way I think about kind of this kind of way you thought was going to bridge that from back then to today is the armed journey, as an example, has been a multi generation exercise for us for sure.

And we certainly learned many lessons is especially on the surface team between the work we did in surface pro x and surface pro nine five g, for instance. And now I think we're in a place where we brought the totality of what was needed to be just building great product for customers at the end of the day to the table. And so, so I feel much more comfortable now in terms .

of the work that we have done. Did you know twelve years ago how long that list of things you just described was? Because I think part of the reason I ask is that feels like the running joke is next year has been the year of windows on ARM for a decade now and and IT seems like at the very least, you and microsoft are substantially more confident that, that is the case now than ever. Uh, but if everyone twelve years, do you think your sense of the project was actually as big as the project turned out to be?

Yeah, this is a great example of the breath and diversity of the windows ecosystem. I think our superpower is the diversity of the ecosystem.

which is such a great, you femm in such like a good and bad way, like IT. Everything wonderful and massively complicated all at the same time.

massive. exactly. So you kind of have to ditch arms around enough of the massive components, I think, to be meaningful at the end of the day.

And that has been, in fact, the reason why we took for this generation of IT correct anally. I think we have done individual bits pieces sooner and then done on a chance basis. We could have done some of the death plant stuff out of the band and kind of got got those pieces out.

We have done parts of the coro s and then released them as incremental updates and windows, but we chose to go take the time meeting to go to the entire thing. What, you know, one good example of that is our partnership on the silence at form. To me, the silicon platform is a foundation for what you know, the OS is, an APP experiences are and what they can take advantage of.

And IT takes time to go rebuild the entire silicon. In this case, our partnership with cocom took us to a place. And so Frankly, holding the place where we had to go back and address some fundamentals and silk and design life cycle IT takes time when you are rebuilding an entire ship for the exercise. So so I think we certainly recited the magnitude of IT in the more recent years, and I think we decided to take the time to address the completion of IT. Perhaps worth are doing other other sort .

of incremental take on IT is IT easy then in that process to sort of find the moment where you like, the moment we really like, okay, where there we've done the thing. And instead of because my sense, something like this is you could tinker with that compatibility until the heat death of the universe and never actually solve every problem in every edge case, how do you pick the moment where you're like, okay, we have kind of over promise and under delivered a couple of times. We know we have to get this right and we have like what how do you put that flag in the ground?

Yeah, it's a great question. You know I think to me there isn't a single one answer thing here you are. Typically, as a team, we collectively look for a set of signals. I would say in this instance, there were some things that we clearly learned by way of customer feedback. In fact, you know, feedback from folks like you for sure, looking at our products.

And so that to me, there are some front center things that you we just had to make sure we were we were delivering on emulator performance was one in such example that was kind of a parent to us what the benchmark industry competition and exert some clear benchMarks that we had to go hit that were kind of markers that we set for ourselves. The second part of IT, I think, was we had some expectations of when we take another international doing this, we do have to be kind of meaningful and work class in this context. And so that was kind of a moving target for us, and we had to go now it's a functions of time, obviously, in time to market and so on.

So so some of those we just decided we're going to take a quantum leap kind of in that sense. And then you will have to kind of wait and watch and decide and see if if that a meaningful exercise or not. The other big component we do, you get a chance to talk to customer.

We do that for consumers for sure. We talk to commercial customers. We get a chance to do iterations and trials and deployments with them. And so we learn through actual blog and data and telemetry ary from our commercial customers to see if we ve addressed or issues.

You know, great example that on the emilie itself, as much as we did tremendous work on the million on the situation, there are something that you can eat. And so you know your mode components and windows and you know on time melar type stuff, the MVP applications that commercial customers do rely on, you have to get the native. So some of those things we do, we took time to go get the data, get customer feedback and you do the trials and do some deployments, get their feedback.

And then then I think you look at the the combination of a mall and then see if you've done enough of the critical mass to decide that you know, the method expectation, the one thing that kind of a gift for us in this context is the AI stuff that happened. I think the the one real uh, inflection point for us, David, was knowing that we could use this opportunity in a more general sense. Certainly, arms is a big piece of IT for us.

And the first wave of copy plus are on quum series ex components. But really using the AI pointing time as an inflection for us to kind of go after A A bigger vector for what value we could serve at the end of day was another thing where, you know, timing figured into our decision making for both value and and timing for the exercise to make sense. And actually.

you could take way in the next thing I wanted up, which is that IT feels like to some extent in twenty twelve, the surfaces job in particular was to sort of remind people that pcs matter like we are in the era when, you know smartphones, we're going to kill everything, laptops or dead. Who needs any of this stuff anymore? Like that's the old way.

And that was, I think, obviously never the case. But that was, I think, part of what surface existed to do was continue to know push that along. IT feels like the job now seems to have shifted a bit where you you're trying to and I even notice this sort of as your own stage talking about this stuff like you have to make the case for these devices in a new way.

And it's not just these things still matter because typing as annoying on your phone, you have to like describe a different way to think about my computer. Then IT has. So i'm curse. Give me sort of the big philosophical vision of like the jo B2Be don e of a P C in thi s era tha t we' re jus t sta rting rig ht now. Has the changes in .

IT has and I think, to be I honest with you on that exercise of mine learning in journey, I would say the last four years have been particularly in because you your point, I think people go to that thought process period, ally, they're like, you know what is the job of the PC? And one thing we learned through the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic on the other side was how vital pcs were.

For people and just how fundamental windows is in the context of serving the breath of education customers, to commercial customers, to frontline workers, to consumers were large. And so I think IT reinforce for people in a way that obviously we took a pandemic, but I think IT away IT also forced us to kind of go to the introspection of how are we making sure we are thinking deeply about the the platform, the ecosystem that windows is on the role for surface in that context, uh, as we go forward. And I think for me, there two constructs one tear pointer, lier.

I think the deeper ted vy proposition of windows, I think IT is a IT is a great reminder. IT is kind of a humbling thing and an inspiring experience at the same time for how important and foundational and and key windows is across all of kind of work and play for people in in life. As we think about the world going forward, I think for me, my sense of orientation in the space is this A I journey that the world is going through.

Our industry, at least for sure, is a tremendous gift for us. And you know, I think that gives us a sense of agency for what is possible on a PC and to kind of magine what was possible to know ten years ago, know twenty twelve for sure. You are not thinking about this in a way that I think is somewhat of a title no shift for us to me.

What I love about this is especially with the ability to build entire system stack, you know can be thought ful. And this is also can part of this project of you know kind of longer perhaps and other the sort of expected is IT needed us to get go to the deep thinking on how do we deliver this proposition in a way that is somewhat durable. And I think we are the infancy of the journey, David.

I think there was going to be no iteration and refinement and learning and evolution in that sense. And so so IT requires us to go think deeply about how do we go integrate AI into our products across the board. IT took us down the path of making sure we were building the hardware platform capability, and that's a statement across the entire windows ecosystem.

We have a whole modern generation of S O S. That i'm actually very excited about. They're going to start showing up for windows. It's going to be great across our partners because I think that modern platform is what then we can build on top of both from an Operating some, some point and as a device maker in surface.

But I think, I mean, just to that point, actually, one of the things I think you could have done and you should tell me if you did do this and because I think it's very interesting, is say, you know, microsoft kind of lost in in mobile, the A I thing is happening. This is our moment. We're going to be launch the surface duo S N A I device and take over the universe.

That is one like perfectly rational version of that thing. But you in another way and you went, you went all in on on PC. It's like even in the fact that the surface pro itself is the same size as is the last one, but is in such a meaningful way like a fundamentally different device, I think is so interesting.

And it's like there's something about what happens when you AI inside of a PC that I feel like consumers just have not seen yet. This stuff is so new, but you you've had to like think ahead about what that will look like and how will use IT. And i'm sure you've just use these devices longer than the rest of us. So like what what is about the size and shape and form factor of a PC that you can add A I to? And IT changes IT meaningful.

Ly, the question, as somebody who worked on deal, we definitely to think deeply about that now in terms of vectors.

s and options. I love duo, by the way, I have a dual right over there. And I love IT to pieces.

I warms my heart. Love your event. I you know my sense on that topic.

First, I think A I is going to show up in a variety different farms for us, mix the copy company, and we're going to deliver copilot as a set of services and experiences, variety different devices, variable from farm parts, you know, different platforms. So you're seeing that from us. We talked about IT on monday as well.

So that I think is is a certainly trust for the company across the I think IT is we're seeing tremendous momentum with things like the and thirty five copilot, for example, in terms of and betting agented capabilities, copy capabilities and productivity, sweet and applications and services in terms of the device form factor. The thing that I am particularly excited about with a PC orientation around IT, by the way, what can we do to mention mobile? The one reason why you know the value of the neural engine and efficiency and just magic math competition and performance per vote, not we do inherit a lot of those capabilities of mobile platforms into these next generation mobile acas.

Obviously, we have the sensibilities because anyway, so I think that I think you know this, of course, and you're seeing this is happening industry, you know broadly. And we are a pole position when IT comes to taking advantage to those IP s those capabilities and bringing you the largest possible new regions at scale into windows on on the on the devices themselves. The thing for us that that comes to large screen farm factors.

We know pro devices, laptops. And by the way, surface is one great embodiment of IT. But what was kind of magical for us with this pa. PC moment is IT was not just surface we had they are leaning from our entire ecosystem partners. And the signals we got from from all of our OEM partners here was super strong.

So I kind of give us conviction on thinking about this, you broad and holistic, making sure where we think of without a transition for a classic devices verses, you know, one particular form factor. The couple of things that make A I kind of meaning for me in pcs. One of them is, by definition, windows, a multi platform, multi APP Operating system.

And one of that, I think, that make their experiences powerful is the fact that these models can reason across things happening, you know, on across your screen, across multiple applications, across workflows. And I think in a world where a lot of what we do is task low across applications and so on, having the ability for having A I help you both in your own APP, but also be able to help with workplace across apps is huge, I think. And the idea recall the notion of search and search becoming semantic.

I think that you know, today, most people don't interact with their devices in a natural language sense, like I think initially we are able to do or would like to go do. And so but for search to be semantic, you know, you do need to flatten what that information architectural and data scheme looks like because you, again, see you want to be a specific, you want to search the way you know your memories that work, for instance, and how you recall things. And so so that wait for us PC.

That was one powerful thing, the ability for us, we able to bring across applications. The second big thing is multi modality on A P C. You are looking at content, you're typing on the screen.

You have the opportunity for voice and actions, you have touch, you have ink. And so these AI models are increasingly going to become multimodal for us. And so the fact that we are a multiple or Operating system, we are multi asking Operating system that gives us a feral ground to go.

You bring these capabilities. And quite actually, I think my sentiment is we have a point of view and where that value starts. The fact is people are going to do things with them that we start with as a point of view, and then they are going to bring their own ideas.

And I think that's going be powerful. The last thing I savic is the power. The windows ecosystem is our APP catalog and what developers do on top of IT. And the beautiful thing with A I now is we are finding a strong pull from traditional you know, windows applications as well as set of folks are traditionally sort of web apps.

If you wail and build websites and stuff who are very interested knowing what they can do with the A I capabilities, local on device, and so they pull from them of, imagine what apps can be. And that's full spectrum, quite Frankly, from I want to change the U I, because I don't need as many radio buttons, dials and so on because the agents can start understanding what's happening all the way through. I want to do next new things where I need local models, and I want those local models to have a sort of attributes that we can know kind for windows platform, stand point bill platform capabilities to serve them.

That's another strong single, which is why I think windows devices are a great place. Could we have a rich catalog that exists at today? And they have very broad officer for taking advantage of A I yeah.

you just brought up my favorite user experience thing to think about right now. And I can't stop thinking about IT and curse I you're thinking about IT this sort of U I of A I also feels very uncertain because a lot of what you just describe as what I would call like infrastructural A I at sort of underlying technology in service of something that shouldn't really feel like AI as you do IT, right, that just makes IT faster or smarter or whatever.

Us, when we talk about A I A lot, we talk about chat bots, right? Like that is that is, I think, the sort of accidental sydney of A I in a way that I really hate and hope we get past. I am cars. I mean, I think I IT sounds like for you sort of runs that whole spectrum. But as you're thinking about like what this stuff should look like and where people should see A I and sort of how loudly IT should scream A I at them when they see IT, how are you thinking about that right now?

You know that as a company, David, we are there's a variety of teams are looking broadly and deeply at the top because .

nobody knows anything. It's so fun. It's all so new.

I think honestly, that's kind of the beauty of IT right now. It's a place for innovation. We are early in the life cycle.

Like you said, I think my sense of of people looking for a paradigm for a period d of time at least, I think there is going to be iteration evolution in different people with diverse inter of view. The values is going to surface itself in different ways. And then I think perhaps there will be some patterns that are more stir in a certain set of use cases and others.

Can you get away with out on windows though? Like windows is not, I would say, famously, a place where you can do a lot of experimenting without immediately infuriating millions of people around the world. Can you play like that in something as big, an important as windows? Yeah, let me actually .

let me try to complete response for the previous thing and combatting ation question. The question, where does IT surface itself? Do we share a little bit we share a glimpse of this, the bill conference, you know, one of our big learnings, at least the canvas of windows, is using A I for serving kind of customers where they're at in their work flows.

And so we have a lot of very highly used surfaces, very high traffic surfaces and windows right now. And one of things we are thinking about is how do we have these agents experiences just help people get to their intent faster, easier and quicker. And so that's one sort of thought process where I think in in front of U.

I. Evolution, you will see the U I. Evolve itself to a place where copilot showing up and more defuse but infuse manner across the Operating system.

It's not in we screaming ing at you, but I think it's the subtle ways of being able to do things that you perhaps do today. But it'll just get you to own faster, more efficient, more intentional way. There is another big thought process, which is around the idea.

Recall that we just introduced features and preview the notion that you can bring net new capabilities, I think, is going to create new shell surfaces, is going to create new experiences. They'll become a place where you will refine and interact and add new value as well. Once you have a semantic index to a point, a survey structural notion that is going to surface itself in a variety different ways.

And so I think another way to think about IT. And of course, then there's the APP experiences and how of those epic experiences in themselves take advantage of copilot capabilities. We introduced the the new copilot, you know, thinking, yes, on monday as well.

And so and then I think you'll see you think of a hybrid day eyes. This will be a pattern. And I think where you'll see these large models in the cloud working with models on the edge, the models on the edge will bring context and understanding, and these large models to do reasoning at a scale that is not possible.

And I think that concert is going to open up some new experiences, more of the U. S. And apple later.

So I think that's kind of about three vectors of thought process right now. And trams where you I you know affordances and constructs will take themselves. And then we will see, you know, here from now.

I'm sure if we talk, you'll see can to be smarter across the order. I think the point of these interfaces can be minimized over time because of the reasoning capabilities is certainly a deep kind of you you've talking about IT a couple of aces. I think that kind of on our minds are your experimental IT point is a great one.

And I think that is a thing. We are on a learning journey ourselves, quite Frankly. And how do we go do that will continue to use the windows inside a program. It's been powerful for us to learn and get what works and what doesn't.

What I love with the insider community is were able to do a bunch of different experiments, were able to do the me synchro sly you and get into signals that at the level that matters for individual features in themselves. Ls, but we also have a right of other learning tools and experimental methods. We are able to talk to customers.

We certainly, you know, get a chance to go experiment with commercial customers. And then I think from a windows standpoint, we get to learn that the rate of the entire company. And so for me, the fact when he comes to the the idea of responsibly the eye, for example, mysore is leading responsible I in the cloud.

We are learning a bunch there and certainly take those lessons and we apply them to customers and is context because are know the same person that the same corporation, the same set of customers. And so so I find in fact and say I were I have more learning tools because the way I ability and services and even know social experiments and how people are experiencing them is actually pretty broad. Rush across the company then features in windows in the past by themselves.

Yeah I always enjoyed the the sort of prose and cons of being microsoft in this ecosystem. On the one hand, you have this incredibly long history and a lot of people who are very accustomed to certain and the sort of costs of change is very high. But on the outside, you can put that kind of self in front of huge numbers of different kinds of people pretty quickly. Yeah and I just that tension I feel like I see everywhere across microsoft and is always really interesting to watch.

He is a great baLance. Ah I don't know if have a recipe for foreign answer that is result of us to success. Like you said, it's it's attention and we have to get to work and baLance there for sure.

totally. So I know I finish go here a minute. So one last question. We started twelve years ago, fast for twelve more years for me.

Is the bed now the same one you feel like you are making with surface twelve years ago? Or is IT has IT shifted? Like is this a sort of inflection point in the life of what you think these devices are and what you're pushing towards with them?

Our okay is a great question. Let me I let me try to do this to be the the philosophy and our street strategy and mission, which surface has been around, you know, driving bleeding innovation in the windows ecosystem in a way that we think allows windows itself to move the middle for what is possible, but to do IT in a way that is actually responsible for and customers.

And as a business within microsoft, I think that aspect of surface is going to be instrumental for us to continue to move the neal of what is possible, both in a technology sense and the product making sense in the sense of how do we deliver these capabilities to customers and to businesses in a way that you know actually credible for them. At the end of the day, I think that aspect of surface will continue IT. IT has been powerful for us, quite Frankly.

I think the copilot wave, copilot plus wave of was only possible with the deep work that happened in surface over the last year for five years. And so that will continue to be instrumental for us. And I and I expect and believe that will continue to be great for us going forward.

In terms of the devices themselves, you know, time will tell. I think, you know, we've grown portal o, we've ve played, we've added, we've tried, we've learned. I think that, that spirit will continue with the team.

We will continue drive innovation. We will learn to those experiments I cited. Many of them are going to be successful. But i'm also clearly some of those experiments and learnings may may not result in, in products in themselves. But in either case, I think they serve the the outcome and the mission for what what's critical for surface and great vanity back is off. I think at the end of the day.

fair enough, I ve neglected for a meeting, so I let you go. But someday we're just gona talk about like hinges and stuff for several hours. And i'm very much looking forward .

that it's going to file lovely. Thank you.

Alright, we have to take a break and then we're going to do a big smart home catch up because there's .

a lot to get to that will be right back.

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We're back. It's time now for my favorite occasional segment on the verge cast, which is when I dragged gene to a onto the show and then complained to her about the smart home for a half hour or so. I call this segment this matter matter.

It's pretty good. But actually there is some fun stuff going on in the smart home moral right now, including some potentially very big news from google and amazon and some other companies that matter in this space, which means geni actually have a bunch to get top on. Gentle, welcome back.

It's Better while IT has David is always a pleasure to .

be back though I feel like we haven't had enough time to yell about matter on this show. IT feels like it's .

time I know what I got to yellow about matter with with me. I on the other show.

so we don't talk about the other. okay. So I I have come up with a little game for us and I didn't tell you that IT, because i'm a very cruel and unhelpful podcast.

I have no idea .

what's about to happen. So I have five topics for you. They're based on stories you've written recently, and i'm going to throw them actually one by one.

And you're going to have to tell me whether this thing is a big deal, a medium deal or a small deal. And then we're going to talk about IT OK. I have cc, but I want to know what you think about.

All obvious. That sounds good. We're gonna die in this can be great.

Sounds good.

The first one, big deal, medium deal, small deal. The dyson wash. G one dance first mop. People are very excited about this thing. Jm, big deal, medium deal, small deal.

What do you think from a smart home perspective? Deny, deny. deal.

Okay.

because it's not a smart thing. It's well and depends on your definition. Not smart, but it's not internet connected in any way.

That is not an IoT device from the world of floor washing. However, I would say it's kind of a big deal because, you know, it's very expensive. But dyson love them or hate them, they are innovative.

They do come up with some interesting solutions for common problems in our home. And once there are lots of great ways to mop your floor, this does actually seem like IT has an interest construct that's going to take a lot of the hard work out of stopping. I mean, Frankly, I have never marked my floors in years because I use robot mops, but that has part of my job. But when I used to have to pull them up out with the bucket.

it's the worst.

It's the west. And this does actually seem like a good solution. And I have used some of the automated versions of there.

So it's a mop that does not have any motor in IT or any kind of fan. So it's very different from any of the products that license brought out prior. You know, it's known for its fans.

So with hair driers so known for its vacuum cleaning ers, this does not suck all blow interesting, although IT sucks in a different way. And that's the kind of neat engineering trick here, which I think is I think is interesting in terms of cleaning your floors. But the people love dice products and people had to pay a lot of money for them.

I do think it's ridiculously over engineered and ridiculously overPriced, but i'm quite confident that will work well. So that makes IT a big deal post. okay. What do you .

think about this? I feel exactly the same way every dicing thing i've ever tried or owned, I think, is wonderful, and proposals at the same time, like I bought my way an air rap for Christmas a couple of years ago.

Wonderful husband IT is hands .

down the most successful gift I have ever bought my life. He loves IT and is an awesome thing. But IT is also like ludicrous, sly, expensive vit and involves a lot of like that.

To be clear, you're not getting any more gifts for several years after this. Like this is IT was like you're engagement ring in this. Like these are the two big gifts you're affecting for me, but the stuff they make tends to be great.

And I think part of the reason i'm fascinated by the marketing as I think as someone who has had a robot vacuum running around for a long time, the robot mop thing seems like IT ought to be the next thing. But at least from the the little bit of experience I have with them, they're not nearly as good as the robot vacuum. You're shaking your head like like your agree yes.

they are not. They're you've got Better, but you have to pain awful lot for the really good ones. And yeah, it's just nowhere near the same as actually mop in your floor.

And this thing will actually mop your floor because IT uses water like the water is constantly flowing onto the mop and to a big mop. Most of the maps on robot mops are small and maybe you know have a very small surface area. So you're not really getting a lot of clean for your for your motion.

Where is this uses like a two large roller mops that constantly spray clean water onto them and then sucks up with agent the dirt. So IT doesn't like that does not have a motor, is not a vacuum, but IT uses agent to kind of get up the debt. So yeah, the pictures they sent and the demo they showed me, I mean, they're very excited about this. This was big enough that they even rolled out, you know surgeons .

dyson himself to the park.

which is pretty for this yeah so they were very excited by IT. But seven hundred, I just i'm sort of in the .

position of like when in the early days of the roomba, IT was like, yes, this is a good idea. I hope everybody decides to work on this and they kind of did. And robot vacuums got to be pretty good. I'm hoping that's where we are with mobs now, because he feels like if I could solve that problem robotically, IT would be amazing, even if I bought this time and when I would use IT like twice and then be like mobile, a lot of work, a Spark for people to work this stuff.

Yes, I think that's true. I'm just surprised they haven't come out with a robot mop. You know, they came out with a robot vacuum, but they've yet to come up with a robot mop, which seems like a natural progression for them.

I don't know. Maybe this was there sort of shot to say, actually, we don't think the robot version is ever going to work. You know, you still need to do the manual part, but we've taken a lot of the hard work out.

I mean, the main the good thing about this compared to so there are other options out there from companies like robot rock that make robot vacuum, that are handheld wet, dry vacuum so they can mop and vacuum as you go. But they're huge and bulky. And you know, it's like a workout pushing them around the floor.

So this is much more light weight and apparently kind of yet, you know has the motion. It's doing the hard work. You are just guiding IT eventually. No, we'll have the full size android in the house, android robot, the income around and pushed IT for you. Maybe that's their plan sold.

That will look great a big deal. But for now, we'll leave at a small deal. I think that's right.

Next thing on the list, uh, you tested out amazon's matter casting. A, I want to know about your experience and b matter casting in general. Big deal, medium, small deal. Would you think?

I think it's big deal. I do. But it's staring at the moment because I just don't see that apple or gool are going to embrace IT because they already have their own propriety solutions for casting content to your TV and matter.

Casting is is like we get like amazon's work on IT the most right now. That seems like put in theory, it's like an open standard for sending content around between devices is basically right.

yes. So IT is is part of the matter standard. IT actually came out with the first iteration of matter.

I want to oh, but it's been very sort of under the radar. I have written about IT, but it's not not many. There's not much adoption.

IT has been driven by amazon. So the way matter works. There's working groups and you have sort of a lead of each ahead of each working group.

And the head of that working group is an amazon engineer and he's pushing this and he's working with from allowed to tell me exactly who's in the group, but he implied its mainly TV manufacturers and at makers. So like who lose or and I don't know that who lose there, but that kind of those kind of people are working on developing IT. So yes, just to clarify, meta casting is a way of casting content from one device to another at its core.

But what has been used for here is casting content from your phone or tablet to a screen, ie, your TV. But IT could be to any screen in your home. So amazon's using IT as a way to cast prime video content to the fire T V stick or in a echo show, fifteen e matter casting has to enabled on both ends.

And if you are familiar with five tvs. And right now, they do not have a native way of casting content. So this is this is really the first time amazon's had something like this, and it's been kind of a frustrating experience for people that use for TV.

Not to have you can mirror, but mirrors never great. But right now, I only works on prime video though they say they have a number of at makers who are who are going to enable, including plex and selling. So they're really pushing IT hard.

The thing that's different about IT verses, google ast or apple airplay, and this is where the at make is come in, is you actually is an act to APP communication. So you're replicating the APP on your phone and on your TV so you can control everything you can do in the prime video APP or the hulu APP or which are the next intercept mirrors exactly on your TV. So you're not kind when I use apple air play like I want to fast forward, but I can't like the controls are an intuitive and at makers are like we've made these great experiences for you on our phone apps.

Let's just make that what you use on the TV. It's it's simplifying the process basically. And I think IT works really well.

My experience was just limited to prime videos, excess, anyone that works. But IT worked great. IT was much easier for me than other forms of casting.

So I think it's going to be a big deal for five T. V. The moment. But in the smart home in general, meta castine means any device can cost to any device, so your washing machine can cast to your TV.

I know that the stuff of nightmares for some people, but I like guessing an alert. On my TV, when my washing's done, you could also, once matter brings cameras in theory to the stand, you know you could have an a non propriety way of view in your video doorbell on your TV. So you wouldn't have to have a certain TV wouldn't have to have a certain video doable for that to work, which is the way IT is today.

And it's a universal new standard open protocol. Anyone can use IT. You know, that's a good thing in this, Martin. We like these open standards as opposed to the closed infrastructure of you know air play or google cast there. There's a lot of potential here.

Yeah right now though, it's yeah it's all amazon and no one else i've spoken to apple and spoken to google about IT and they are all like not saying anything. We're not using this yet, and this is one of the problems with matter. Not all platforms are required to use or implement every part of the matter standard.

And for example, one of the problems right now, I love the idea, have been able to cast to my TV from any matter device. But samsung, one of the major TV manufacturer, even though they are fully on board with matter, they have not committed to their tvs or any of their appliances being matter enabled. So we're going back to this issue of, you know, there's these great open standards and open protocols that you can use, but not everyone is adopting them. So that kind of you know nek caps the whole initiative from day one with .

matter casting in particular. IT seems like if i'm google or apple, i'm looking at IT saying, okay, at least matter in general solves problems, right like you can understand why eventually you're going to want to be part of this broader ecosystem that you don't have to control all of by yourself yeah whether they want to. Now we're not a spoiler we're going to get to in a minute.

But the question of like is that a long term good idea sort makes sense. My sense is forecasting if i'm running airplay or a google cast. Unlike ah we've kind of solve this problem and make sure IT might be nice to have a bigger, broader thing to do.

But what most people want as they want to tap a thing on their phone and have IT play on their television, and we've done that. So to me, it's like i'm curious to see if anybody can sort of build a use case that is so much more useful, for matter, casting than that. And then I think you might start to see everybody get on board.

But until then, my sense is apple looks at airplane is like, yeah we did that like we want to get IT on more screens like in hotels and whatever. But like airplay works, it's fine. We were not going to invest more resources.

but the advantage vid hotel T V screens is a great example. Hotel tvs would not need all new hardware to work with that. All they need is an update to an APP. So you know, instead of waiting to what twenty fifty when we can go into a Hilton and they play to our LG TV or whichever I forget who IT is that made the deal with.

But you'd able to do IT tomorrow is just all you need to do is update the software on the at on the TV and the software on the APP on your phone. I mean, you can have IT built into the TV itself, but you don't have to have a matter enabled TV for this to work necessarily. So IT would be an easier solution. And I think where the momentum might shift is if amazon is successful in getting the manufacturer on board here and the T V manufacturer because yes, the TV can have airplay and google ast, but if IT also has matta casting IT IT would be A A more seamless experience for the user because it's very you don't have to figure out if IT supports this or that. IT will just work, and which is the whole promise of matter, IT will just work.

Big equation, exactly. So while run the subject of matter, matter casting, big deal. I I agree. I think long term, big deal. Short term.

not so much.

Yeah, big deal for prime video fire. T, V. On customer shock.

Yes, matter one point three came out a couple of weeks ago. You wrote a story about IT. Matter one point three, big deal.

Medium deal, small deal, big deal. OK, big deal. A lot of momentum. I was very not excited by matter Wanda. One matter, Wanda T. I was a little bit more interesting because there was a lot more device types added.

But matter and three just brought a whole load of more potential with IT because more device types of the device times went that the exciting that was kind of what we're expected. Like we got washing machines last time, so now we had tumbled dress like wool. There are a few a few interesting additions there.

But I think the big, big deal here, while matter costing came updates, meta casting came with one three, which I was excited about. That was the ability to cast from device to device, not just the APP to APP, but the big deal, I think, is the energy reporting, energy management features, which we've been waiting for. We knew I was coming, but we've been waiting for this.

And this is, you know, to me, energy management in the smart home really takes the smart home from so the nh. To almost necessary. Because today, you know, conserving resources, using less energy in our home, saving money, are all things that you many people are worried about, concerned about, trying to do.

And the smart home makes can make IT so much easier to do all of this stuff automatically to one of the main sort of showcase pieces that came out with matter on up through the exemplifies. This is electric vehicles ageing. So T, V, S, C, charges.

So electrical vehicle supply equipment is now as device type in matter, as is the ability to control and create a management of the way IT charges. So for example, you could use your matter APP, or matter enabled the APP to tell your E, V, I want to have eighty miles of range by two pm. This evening, this afternoon.

And I want you to use the least expensive energy to get there between now and then. And you just hit butter, and they will do that for you. Was supposed to you having to go in and like check, you know is the clean energy now? And some electrical vehicle supply equipment can do this today, but it's propriety.

So IT, you have to have you know the tesla charger in the tesla APP or the key a charger in the key APP, whereas will open this ability to any smart home APP that uses matter. So in theory, your apple home APP or your samsung smart things APP could do this kind of management for your evy for you. In fact, samsung already does have some electric vehicle management, but again, it's specific brands and specific cars, so you have didn't have the right equipment.

Where is bringing this type of management to matter? Will open IT up so that I should work with anything that can work with matter. And IT works locally, obviously, which is which is an a bonus. But I will need to use the cloud obvious ly to get things like energy Prices.

But beyond evs, you know, you can see this applying to using your time to drive your washing machine, making sure your fridge m that uses defrost, does a deep cycle, you know, at a time when energy is low, like if you connected everything in your home and appliances, almost all appliances are now part of matter, which is what came with one or three. We're mainly just waiting on heat pumps, which they say are coming next. And that's obviously big part. And that was one other appliance I can't members top of my head.

I was water heater straight.

What is? So both of those obviously a big energy consumers, although heat pumps less than traditional hvac, so but still be able to manage their energy use, energy reporting. And this is where I think it's going to get interesting with the platforms like apple home, google home, because this gives them the opportunity to start differentiating, right? So today, a lot of people said, well matter, just commodified everything.

Everything works with everything. So why is there a benefit for for these platforms? And for anyone that wants to create something in this mark home and how you manage the energy, what kind of this you can provide on top of this type of reporting that the system is now providing is going to help differentiate.

So if apple home comes up with a great way of managing energy throughout your home with your connected appliance says, you might be more inclined to use their APP. Samsung already has a pretty good samsung energy system in place, so I think it's got the head start there and google home, we ll see elea already has some energy management built in if your device supports IT. So I think in the next few months and have already seen a few come out, we're going to see a lot more devices adopting matter in order to because this is a reason to put matter in your device. Having energy management is is a huge sort of push for smart home. It's not the sexy fun stuff, but it's really important.

I think, back to like the days of the next thermo SAT. To some extent, that thing that I was just like we will help you lower your heating and cooling bill for your house is maybe still, to this day, this single like simplest, most compelling smart hom use case for most people.

And I think this this just adds to that in really interesting ways, but also seems like IT sets up this cool fly wheel potentially work like, okay, not only are you able to control more and more of yourself, but the stuff that you're controlling can feed more data back to the system. Which means, like you're saying, the system can start to do Better in the people building these systems can do more stuff with that information and you can actually start to like improve upon itself over time as supposed to. Just a lot of what we've had so far is just sort of increasingly elaborate controllers.

And that's fine. As far as I like the job of the smart home should be to do most of this on its own. And we're like we're slowly getting to the point of IT. Feels like the puzzle pieces for that are starting to get in a place which is very exciting.

IT is and this is something i've been talking to companies about for years, and IT takes the mistaken them years to you, get the partnerships, get the electric companies on board. You know, it's a huge project. Whether this should make IT a lot easier to push us forward.

And the really exciting part, I think, and this is also something I read about in the last couple weeks, is that IT could help shift not just your home, but energy use in the entire. Country or world by promoting and helping push forward the idea of virtual power plants. And this is something so next renew you mention next.

So next renew is turned into a new program now called renew home. But google still involved. But google kind of shifted nest renew, which is the service that helps you save energy when you use your next theme step to a new sort of platform that emerged with a company that had already been doing demand response programs in a select states in the country.

But now it's working towards sort, creating virtual power plants using every smart house and every house that has smart appliances as virtual power plants. And that something that could really help reduce the strain on the grid you and create a Better experience for everyone. So is for the greater good totally.

I think that's really exciting. What you mentioned, uh, heat pumps and water hears, are there other like huge categories is still missing in matter what what's kind of still on the on the .

to do this there? Cameras is a big one other, they said that's definitely coming, although IT will come from what I understand, in a very limited fashion, IT will really IT will just be that you can view your stream and control your stream in any platform. But if you want recorded video, you want me added things like a identification, people, animals, that's all gonna be from you, from the manufacturer still.

So it'll just be there that you'll be able to, in theory, view your video anywhere or music for, hopefully for trigger automation like motion detection. Or if you spot an animal, turn the iron on. This is for my chicken coup.

So that I think I think people want cameras there because you want want out to see everything, but you're still going and this is a theme with matter. You're still going to need to use manufactured apps if you want the added benefits, if you want the added features, but if you just want the basic use case of smart home, that's one one that's really requested. People really want cameras.

And then the other, which I don't think wherever going to get is security systems. Oh, sure. So you know your smart home school system.

And I think those may bridge into matter because most of them as you wave based, but there's just too much around the us. So all, all security systems, most if you have a certificate, most of them are you certified. And that requires a lot of certification.

It's a tough certification to get is an important one, ensures you your excuses stem is gonna in the way you're expect IT to. And I just don't see much I think the machine between security systems and matters just not likely to happen anytime soon, but I think we may get to the point where you can bridge IT so you can still control everything in one out. But those are the main things that we are at.

Now that feels like an OK outcome to me with both of those actually to say, you know, you can sort of take what's happening inside of those systems and use IT in the broader system. But the idea that, like in theory, everything in my matter home should have perfect access to everything i've ever recorded on my security camera actually feels kind of weird. So like maybe, maybe at the at the very least, taking that one slightly slowly makes some sense to me. So i'm actually, for once, I will give the matter folks of credit for IT going slowly here that feels that feels good.

And then there is one more, though, sorry, adaptive lighting. We're still waiting for Better control of lighting. They say that's coming soon, but again, this is going to be one of the things you need to use your apps for.

But I still, I want to be able to use, I want every light in my house, no matter which manufacturer from to be able to sink to the scene that i've chosen. And they say that's coming, so hopefully in the next update. But sorry, yes, I can keep going.

Got IT. All right. tumor. So what I think I know where both of these will feel, so will do the less exciting one.

First, you rote about brilliant, this smart home company that was, I would say, one sort of high flying. And now a seems to be in in very rough shape bRiley kind of collapsing for a lack of a Better term. Big deal. Medium deal. Mod, I can sense you wanting to be nice to brilliant here.

IT is not surprising. I kind of saw IT coming. IT was a great idea. I have written a lot about wanting Better controllers in my home, and I worked very well as that type of controller I had been looking for, but only with certain products.

And that was you know, IT was almost is almost like a symbol of the problems, the smart whom have had to date. They've been around a long time. They they launched in almost ten years ago.

I think they'll ve been around a long time, is a good product and good hardware. But so they're basically gone out business. I mean, they are still keeping the lights on, so the system still works. I have one in my house and it's not stopped working. They're looking for a buyer.

I did actually check in with the CEO, just lost just a few days ago and he said no news yet, but looking promising and he's hoping that uses of the system, which is a smart light switch installed wired to your house, but can also be used as a smart home control, let to control you like a sono system, view your video doorbell, control your lights, your thermostat. It's sort of them not all in one smart home controller. But I have very limited integrations.

And the company said to me over the years when i'd ask him about this is like it's not that we don't want these integrations is that companies won't work with us. And this is one of the reasons that matter came about because of this issue with interpret ability and having to make individual integrations every device out there. And they've been trying to do this for years, but they're hardly added any new integrations in the last few years.

And they weren't adopting matter. And I had asked, they said they were. They said they were, but they hadn't done that yet and they didn't really feel like IT IT was coming down the pipeline. Aron the CEO told me that they did have a new generation ready to roll, Better a hardware, Better integration, not Better integration yet. But they had sort of more there that that was going to make on device processing.

A I IT was going to be a much improved device and less expensive because all my gosh, I forgot to mention how expensive these devices were starting at four hundred dollars for a lighter witch was just too much. And that was always their problem, too expensive. But when I asked, that didn't sound like theyd added thread or matter yet, even to this next generation.

And I think they're some potential for a buyer who does if someone does come and take this product and sort of keep IT as IT is but improve upon IT, that's really where I think IT has a lot of potential to be a decent smart home controller if I can work with everything. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of a medium deal. It's IT is a symbol, I think, of, of the turn of the smart home like with a decade also into this sort of DIY smart home now.

And we're seen, you know some of the early pioneers kind of drop off. They've either been bought or they've sort become somewhat boring like ring. They're not really innovating anymore.

But there they have a core customer group that they have a great business, but it's not exciting anymore. Brilliant is an example. I think you they were an independent company.

They kept independent to the very end. But it's hard now for these startups. I am guessed I don't know if this next question is gonna about to start up because .

I think I might .

be it's not actually OK. Well, I was quilt was the start up yeah everyone that I wrote about which was a heat pump company but yeah, it's it's not an easy space right now for startups and IT hasn't been for the last few years. And and brilliant was kind of sadness a victim of that yeah.

brilliant is is always going to to have a sort of special place in my heart. I tried a very early version of IT that just sucked. I mean, that was so broken and bad, I put IT in my wall, and then the light on the balcony of my apartment wouldn't turn off until I took IT out of the wall.

But eventually they fixed IT, and I got a working version of that. That was like an early prototype just thought there. But eventually I got a thing that worked. IT was really great. They they got a lot of things right, but I always felt like like a touch screen on your wall can't possibly be the correct answer to this problem.

And and IT does seem like the thing that brilliant was was always going to be sort of a transition into how the smart home is actually exposed to work. And IT feels like good for us, but bad for brilliant. That is the transition that happening right now.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think you're right. The smart home needs to be smarter.

Yeah, I all right. Last one, google launched a bunch of new home APP at google. I O.

And I confess i'm torn between the either this is a huge deal that might actually change a lot of things and this is nothing and no one will adopt these apps and no one cares. Ah so where are you? Big deal, medium deal, small deal.

Oh, I think it's a huge deal OK. I think it's huge. I think it's you you I hope it's not I hope it's not google to say we have had enough of this someone else deal with IT.

yeah. So what is sort of the idea behind the apps that they're launching here?

So they have launched home, their home a, which is giving access to developers, device makers at makers to any device connected to google home, including google devices. So thermostats, presumedly, smoke arms, cameras. There i've said not necessarily initially, but that may be coming.

But one of the key parts is, is also giving access to the automation engine. So now essentially so with these apa device maker can create an APP from scratch for their device or for any device that connects to google home and create a smart home experience for you. So you wouldn't have to use google home, but you would let the google home APP, but you could use any automation system that the google home APP provides and any devices that connect to and with matter.

There are many devices to connect IT, so both works with google, and matter devices will be accessible through these apps. And IT basically is similar in some ways to how apple homes home original home kit worked. If you've ever used I can eve APP or nano leaf APP, you could access every device that was connected to apple home kit.

In the eve APP or the nano I fp on IOS. This google home API will work on both IOS or android and could basically mean people can create an entire smart home platform from scratch on an APP that you could use that isn't google home, but uses google smart in the background, which are good. They just have been stayed because I feel like perhaps not enough resources are going into developing google home at google.

I mean, google got its fingers in many pies, and it's always felt like google home is a bit of an after thought. I think it's really only still here because of the hardware. So I think this is big.

I think it's also really big because open are really the sort of lifeblood of the smart home when things are closed and locked down like brilliant, you know, when IT shuts down in no longer works. But if really, really had a local API like, you know, if that google homes open in its, then even if they go out of business, the device is still going to work in your home. That is like the lifeblood of the smart home apps and opening, mister.

And you want to be able to use, I think is is really exciting. But you are right. IT does depend on people actually picking up and using IT.

So far though, there are a number of big companies that are using IT. A, D, T, is using the facial recognition on goodness cameras. The facial recognition is going to let your system disarm when IT recognizes someone that you've authorized to come into your home. It's called trusted neighbor. Is a new service that they're rolling out later this year, and that's we're using google home p eyes.

So and it's again going back to what I mentioned before, what this gives is the potential for companies to build Better experiences than, say, google home has been doing today, but using the tools that are already there rather than having to reinvent the wheel or develop individual partnerships with all of these companies to have access to their devices. But google is like a lexie, and that IT works with pretty much everything, but just in a limited way. And now you're gna have, I think, much you're going to see more innovation from manufacturer and device makers. That is exciting if if that happens. Yeah, what part of .

what I wondered about the whole maybe I think is if IT means we can get a bunch of new kinds of devices with new capabilities like A D T. Thing you're talking about is, is a really good example of that. And again, that goes back to this idea of sort of making the system work with itself in really cool ways, which is I think is super excited.

yes. But then I just keep thinking about one of the examples that they gave where they are like door dash can make IT so that when the delivery person comes to your house is like automatically unlocked for them in turns, the front light on or whatever. And I on the one hand, I think there are probably really cool, exciting versions of that that exist in the world.

On the other hand, I think that might be the most like solution in search of a problem thing i've ever heard in my entire life. So do you think do you think there's anything to that idea that like, maybe this is how the smart phone sort of invades the rest of the online ecosystem? Is this just a smart yeah.

so that was the way they were selling IT. In fact, I was very not smart home. They were like now any developer from with any APP can can use smart home devices and and I get where they were coming from there. I do think this today, the smart home has kind of felt niche and closed. And like you need all of these devices to get any benefit out of IT and this was IT is IT does seem like a solution in such a problem.

The door dash idea is, you know, you don't have to be a smart home home device maker to take advantage of what what you can do with these s and I think that was an important message to get out there just to show, to maybe get people thinking about what they could do with this type of technology, because IT isn't IT shouldn't just be limited to, you know, good night routines or welcome home routines. There is so much more that we could be doing with our homes. I think that was a slightly uninspired example, but I think that people that are going na be taking advantage of this really IT will be the smart home device makers.

I'd be interested to, you know uber, arbi and B I could see potentially taking some real advantage of this and companies that are sort of home related, if not necessarily smart home related. So I think I think there's a lot of potential. But like all of these development conferences, if we know these announcements we get IT really is gna depend on how much this is inspired, develop us to go out and and do something. So we will always have to wait and see.

IT feels like a fun moment in that sense that there's actually a lot of sort of new fun toys for anyone working in the smart home to play with between all the yourself coming in matter and what google is up to. And obviously, amazon is continuing to invest in alex and it's like there's just sort of more stuff to work with then there, husband. Ah which I guess means were probably due for some more chaos in the near term, but also maybe means a lot of this stuff that has just been sort of theory waiting for infrastructure is like starting to become 为 but ending is really cool。

Yeah, I think you're right. And IT is IT is an exciting time. And you know we mentioned that this was of the end of a cycle for one load lot of startups in the smart home, but IT is the potential beginning of a cycle.

I mean, there's a couple smart, smart m starts up. I've been talking with the last few months who have some great products that they're ready to launch, but they're still just been waiting on this type of infrastructure to come along to make IT possible. And west, the signs are there.

And this is one thing that I was quite disappointed about with mattawa three is that we still don't have the support from platforms. I mean, google opening up its aps was a nice step in the right direction, but they still don't support half of the new device types that are in matter. Wanda.

Three, apple has hasn't gone me on matter. Wanda. I mean, if we're lucky, we may get one of two devices, which are robot vacuum washing machines, fridges in apple home with IOS eighteen, if we're lucky.

But that means another whole year until we get tumble dress. So I just I really hope that the platforms and amazon's been very slow here. Samsung's been a little faster and I get why they're been slow to some extent.

They don't anna break people's homes. But if we don't start getting this out there and the consumers get to use IT and get excited about IT, then we are not gna get the developers coming on board and making these good experiences. You know, we need we need both sides of the solution here to to get people excited.

And so I really want to to see apple, google, amazon, samsung just go all in on what this this platform, this protocol, this smart m standard that they've developed to solve this problem, they can just leave IT there. Now that yeah, they brought in a life, they've really got to put the work in and see this through. And so far, it's been pretty limited and that's been quite disappointing.

So i'm hoping that we will hear something exciting. Ww c, next month. Not holding my breath. I think it's just can be all that. Ai, yeah.

I maybe long. I suspect you are right.

Prove me wrong. Apple figures .

cross are right before we go. You've been playing with tons of new smart home gadgets. What give me give me your favorite, coolest thing you've been playing with recently?

Oh, well, actually I have I have to go with my smart chicken coup.

Okay.

do tell. Yes, i'm been testing a new smart chicken coop is called coup. And IT is a startup based up in california.

And IT has IT is very well designed chicken coup. But the main kind of smart features, IT has two cameras in with really impressive AI capability. So IT can tell me if the door of the coop is open. IT can tell me if there's an egg laid.

IT can count how many chickens in my coup, so in case once gone missing, and IT will also tell me if IT spots like a fox or or if IT spots a cat or a bob cat like different predators, different nuisance animals like IT has some really interesting AI capabilities, as well as the automatic door that will open and close at the right time based on sunrise or sunset. So that the chicks going in out. I have baby chicks right now.

I got new ones to test out this coop because my, my ladies were too big to fit in this coup. It's quite small, but it's been a lot of fun. It's just, I mean, baby chick, I mean.

it's that's fun. You you can't be that.

You can't be. That is very expensive. I think cabin is at twenty five hundred dollars, but having built my own chicken coop with wood, well, having watched my husband build our chicken coop and helped buy the staff at lows, they're not cheap, you know.

It's an expensive for product whether you buy one or build one. So it's interesting to see this kind of innovation, smart hom innovation, sort of moving outside of the home and into the garden. And you know, homesteading with my chicken s so yeah, that's been really fun. We've been enjoying that. I love IT baby .

checks for journalism. That's the dream right there. Hi jane. Thank you. Is always super fun.

Have thank you. We won't leave IT so long next time.

right? We got to take one more break. And then we'll take a question from the world cast hot line. We will be right back.

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right? We're back. That's good to the hot line. As always, the number is eight, six, six, verge one one. The email is verge cast to the verge that come. We love all your questions, and we try to answer at least one on the shoe every week. This week we have a question about search engine, which actually we got a lot of questions about search engine, but I was particularly taken with this one from Nathan.

Hey guys, this is nature from a oppy with this. And I was just thinking about this whole generated response from google when you go to google something. And i'm just wondering, is the big deal here that its google is doing because there are there are not the first to be doing this.

I'm sure as you guys know, the art browser is A I generating whole kind of web pages every time you start something on your phone. And then i'm one of the twelve people that uses edge network, and I actually use being to search because then I will how to generate a response with coal pilot first, and then kind of give me all the web result. So when google was telling new light of that, something they're experiencing that people of higher structure rates from those generate responses.

I mean, I can really bad that up. That's exactly what I do. And and so wonder, is the problem just that google doing that is the problem that they are so large that if they are doing that, this impacts of the way that the search world works is that not? And that when the egg browser and when the art browser are doing that, that doesn't matter because they're just not the dominant search.

I feel like that maybe is the argument here. So I was just once ing. What you guys is thoughts are on that if it's just a matter scale, not a matter what they're doing or there's more to that. Thanks, guys.

okay. I think the answer to this question is mostly yes, but kind of yes and no. I think on the one hand, the scale of google is the thing.

You just can't overstate the extent to which google is the center of the internet. For anyone who makes a website, whether it's a cooking blog or a news site or just a place to show off your photography, google is the internet. IT is the main discovery tool of the internet.

So what you've seen is everything over the last, I don't know, fifteen years really has reshaped in order to work the way that google has asked IT to work. You see cooking blogs just to keep hoping on that they have changed the way that they make their pages in order to suit google. The thing where at the bottom you have the recipe, but at the top you have, you know, two thousand words of stories about the person and there is a bunch of photos and there's a bunch of sub headlines that are all kind of questions that don't really fit.

But our questions, people might be all of that is designed for google. The seo search engine optimization has completely reshaped the web. This is a thing we've talked a lot about on the show. This is a thing we've written a lot about on the site.

I put links in the shown notes, but google has fundamentally reshaped to the web because IT is so important, because when people want to find things on the internet, they don't go other places. And I think the arc search and being are instructive examples here actually, because it's true that being has been doing this longer than google. You could already AI your way through the internet with being, and it's something no one noticed, but no one really cared because being is not meaningful to the traffic and revenue and existence of websites in the way that google is.

IT just does not matter what everybody else does, cumulative in the same way that IT does what google does. Google has something like ninety percent of the search on the internet. That's a crazy number.

That is one of the things that has brought google into the anti trust scrutineers. IT is IT is so powerful because IT has no real meaningful competitor. The flip side of that is that I think the things that we're talking about apply just as much to these other things you're talking about.

When ark, for instance, rolled out the browse for me future, where you type in a search query, you hit browse for me. And instead of giving you a bunch of search results that sort of compiles a web page for you, which is a lot like what the A I overviews on google are doing, because you the summary and and the links. Since a multimedia stuff, people had the same kind of visual reaction, which is that IT felt like the exchange of value that people who make websites have with discovery tools was gone rate.

The idea for two decades has been that I am going to make something, and i'm going to let google access IT and index IT and cash IT on its servers and make ads when people try to find IT in exchange for sending traffic to my website. And the idea that I could monetize, or in other ways, benefit the traffic to my website, that was the trade google gets to have and have access to, and in some way, sort of inner mediate how people find my website, because IT sends people to my website. That is the trade, that is the trade people have made on the internet for twenty years.

That feels different when it's A I and I think the way people reacted to ark, there have been people who said this with being. There have been people who worried about this with perplexity. All of these tools run into the same thing, which is they shortcut that they completely end around that exchange of value.

And just say, don't worry, I went and visited all those web pages for you and brought back the information that you need. Never mind that the quarter on that web page doesn't accuse me any advertising money. It's not going to click my a fili IT links. It's not going to be impressed with my stuff and read more articles. It's not going to make the cookies that I suggested and then save IT and tell friends about IT and bring more traffic.

IT doesn't do any of that IT just pulled IT into a database and spat out the information with essentially no link back to the original source, the information, and certainly no reason to go find the source of that information because i've already given you everything you need rate here in the summary. On the one hand, cool user experience for lots of things, on the other hand, totally breaks the value exchange of the internet, right? So I think the thesis not that different between what you're seeing from all these A I companies and what you're seeing from google.

The difference is just the scale. And google has been existentially important to websites for two decades in a way that I think has been problematic for a really long time. There is the sense that google one, in some way, that google became the orbital of the internet, and that the only thing to do as a media company, or as a cooking blog, or as a person with a website of any kind, was to play google game or try to find a way to get money from google directly.

And so you've seen a lot of these fights over the years of companies like news corp. Picking fights with google and saying, you have to pay us for our content or we're going to disappear. And I think what has been true forever is that these websites have needed google more than google has needed these websites.

And that has been a chAllenge. And one thing you've heard us talk about a million and particular talks about this is that google doesn't actually oh, these websites anything. And I think google would tell you that IT cares about them and believes in the web and once to preserve the open web.

That's all really easy to say out loud. And it's also not particularly meaningful when google is able to do the things that is doing now, which is, say, well, our responsibility that is actually to get users to the information that they want as quickly as possible. And again, that actually an interesting product argument IT subverts.

A huge amount of the way that the internet has worked, in part because all of these websites are so reliant on google and what google has meant to them for so long. This is what we went through with facebook when facebook made everybody pivoted to video with the promises of huge amounts of traffic and tons of money. And then that all sort of dried up.

Everybody kind of got used to facebooks, wish you washing in this and back and forth on supporting websites and caring about traffic outside and eventually just realized, well, okay, we're gona treat facebook as kind of A A value ad, right? If we get traffic from facebook, terrific, but i'm not going to bend over backwards in order to get traffic from facebook. And that hurt a lot of websites traffic.

There are a lot of websites that going away when facebook stops sending them traffic. And the same has never really happened with google, in part because google more or less remained a good citizen of that value exchange for talking about until now. And there's a lot left to be seen. I think it's possible, as Nathan says, that really great content is going to be more prioritize.

And the question will be, what happens to the folks who write this sort of commodity stuff, like, I think a lot about the articles years ago that every time john Oliver would post anything, every website ad in the internet would be like john Oliver roast, whoever, right? Like he gets mad about hockins gs, and lots of people cared about what john Oliver did, so they would google john Oliver on a monday morning after the sunday night show. And whoever was at the top of search results made a ton of money and got a lot of traffic.

That was always kind of a weird game. And I think you could reasonable argue that the best outcome is actually just that you get to john all over much more quickly instead of a website talking about john Oliver. But what if there's really great unique context added or lots of interesting new information or somebody did good reporting on top of the reporting? The general over did this question of that sort of sliding scale between what is commodity information that everyone should know and no one has particular claim to when was able to him lin born? That is just a question.

IT doesn't matter who has the answer, there are not particularly interesting reasons to go to one place or another for the answer I just wanted know whenever him like in this born all the way down to like truly great original stuff, whether it's a new recipe or new art that somebody made, or a new esa from somebody y's smart that you like, or original reporting in the news business. Google is now in a position of having to decide where one of those things ends and the other begins, and is also just making this bet. Or at least this promise to publishers that, oh, we're going to get so much Better giving people information that they're actually going to be more curious.

They are gonna to know more stuff. I'm very suspicious of that argument, to be totally honest. Google is like if we just surface Better stuff to more people, more people will click on IT as somebody who makes their living making things on the internet.

I sure hope that's true. I'm not confident that that's true. But IT does put google back in this position of once again being the orbit of all of this stuff.

And I think you'll see us talk a lot more in the near future about different kinds of search engines because I think search engines are great, great. Like what google was for a really long time was really valuable to a lot of people. And I think google has shifted away from that to something else.

That new thing might be great. IT might be different. IT might be terrible, who knows? But I think there is going to be interesting competition in the space for a long time because google is kind of running away from the thing that people love about IT.

And that is weird to me, to be totally honest. There are a lot of companies that you can understand why they pay IT. Google is taking this beloved, wildly successful business and kind of pivoting away from IT.

And I think you're going to see a lot of folks come in and say, well, actually, search was both a good product and a good business. And maybe what we need to do is be part of that because google is going to just leave that gap open in the market again. So I think all of this is gonna get more interesting and more competitive.

But also, the immediate threat to publishers and bloggers and anyone who makes a website on the internet is that all of a sudden I could just dry up traffic. Google has made changes before that. People have turned around and said, oh, google made a small algorithm change and my website essentially disappeared from the internet.

That's a real thing that happens. And that happens to bad websites that probably should have their spammy stuff removed from google search. And that applies to really great that don't deserve that and just get caught up in google's changes for whatever reason.

And we're already seeing with these A I overviews lots of unintended. Weirdly, there's there's always people out there posting stuff about. I think there was one that I was like add glue to your pizza uce to make IT sticker. I don't do that, but that's the stuff that out there now.

So where are the beginning of a thing that google has just turned on and is making a gigging tic back on and is shifting its whole core product towards and the ramifications that are just barely beginning to show up and it's going to take a while, and I think it's going to be scarier to a lot of people that google is going to be willing to acknowledge. So all of that is to say, yes, I know Nathan, right? I think the the same principles apply.

But google is doing IT in a way that is so much bigger and more important to the health of the open internet and the economy of how people make money from websites that IT feels bigger because IT is. And I have no idea where I talk na go, but we're gonna talk about IT an awful lot on the show for the rest of the suspect. Alright, that is enough for now.

That's if for the verge has today. Thank you to everybody was on the show, and thank you is always for listening. There's lot more, as always on everything we talked about at the verge that com.

I'll puts the links to all of our S O coverage from last year. We covered this a ton. We're still covering at a time super fund stuff, lots of microsoft news, lots of smart home news.

Put IT on the but you know read the version that come if you come to our website, we don't have to worry about google. That's kind of the whole point of what we're going to do. It's a good website.

We do our best. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, surface devices you would like to sell me. You can always email us at verge cast of the verge dot com or cover outline eight, six, six ge, one one we love hearing from you that I gave mentioned before.

My favorite sack channel at the verge is the one that just puts everybody's voice mails into a place where we can listen to them all day. And I love IT. And people keep asking to be asked, let into that room so they can hear the hot line voice mails.

It's the best. I love IT. This show is produced by dr. Liam James and willpower. The verge cast is a verge production and part of the box media podcast network. Me, I alex now will be back on friday to talk about presumably more OpenAI and all the stuff that's to come a ww B C, and lots more see them rock and roll.

Support for this episode de comes from A W S. A W S, generate A A, I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced club. Hey, it's lee. From decoder with the laptop, we spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing the special series diving in the summer.

The most unique ways companies are spending money today, for instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listen to you right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisition s this year, especially in A I space, why are so many big players and t not to acquire and instead license can hire away co founders? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems. You'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the liberation presented by strike. You can listen to the coder whatever you get your podcast.