Google TV, the operating system mainly serving the successor devices to Google’s defunct Chromecast line of products, is far from ubiquitous when you compare it to the overwhelmingly more popular Roku operating system and Samsung’s Tizen, but for what it’s worth, GTV is the one trying the hardest to shoehorn AI into the user experience. And an upcoming change announced Monday at CES will bring image and video generation via Google Gemini’s Nano Banana text-to-image model family to your TV.
Like anything announced at CES, the implied promise is that people will want to use this, and the suite of features being described here is, I have to admit, intriguing.
There are some AI assistant features mentioned in this announcement, but since the advantage Google TV has over most smart TV operating systems is that it’s connected to your Google account, the most interesting new change is that Gemini will be able to search your library on Google Photos, and apply the Nano Banana features you may have already futzed around with on your smartphone, but from the comfort of your couch this time. This means adding uncanny effects to your family photos via the Photos Remix feature, and the ability to, according to Google’s press release about the update “transform memories into cinematic immersive slideshows.”
This next ability is listed separately in Google’s press release, even though it sounds a bit like the first: “Use Nano Banana and Veo to reimagine your personal photos or create original media directly on your TV.”
As photos accompanying the announcement make clear, much of what’s on offer here is designed to, well, get TV viewers to watch a slop generator.
In one image, Google AI Premium users are invited to create videos. Another shows the actual video creation interface, which has what look like Pixar-style animated sample videos with suggested prompts like, “Fluff fish swimming on coral reefs made with squishy yarn.” There’s a popup at the bottom of this menu with the text, “Describe your video…” Below that is instructional text about pressing and holding the mic button on your remote to talk.
It all paints a picture of an activity you’re meant to enjoy in your living room: the “generate videos of our family members” game, perhaps. But the window dressing is more wholesome and kid-oriented than Sora’s more brainrot-forward approach to user-generated video.
Anecdotally, most people I know who tried Sora had their curiosity slaked after a few days on the app, and don’t really revisit it. I can see that being a problem with generating custom videos on Google TV as well. But there is, at the very least, something novel about messing around with AI while curled up with the dog and a bowl of popcorn.
Google’s release says these features will come to certain TCL devices first, and will expand to the rest of the Google TV universe “over the coming months.”