We ask Gemini and Alexa to track cats and give advice

Hello, and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of smart home voice assistants. I'm Jennifer Patterson Tuohy. And on today's show, Nilay joins me, and we're gonna review Gemini for Home and Alexa Plus. Generative AI promised a revolution for smart speakers, smarter, more capable in home voice assistants that can understand natural language, pass complicated commands, and run your smart home for you. What more could you want? A year into this revolution? Are we any better off? But first, a look at everything that's happening on The Verge today. This is ninety seconds on The Verge for Thursday, 08/20/2026. Grand Theft Auto six, the most hotly anticipated video game since Grand Grand Theft Auto five, is leaking. Yesterday, three clips of apparent game footage appeared online, and today, we reported on a new clip from the group called Cyberleak that shows footage of Duval shooting the word leak into the wall. This could mean an actual copy of the game has escaped Rockstar's containment. If you can't wait till the November release, there's an extended look coming to Netflix next week. Spoiler alert, you steal cars and kill people. Surprise. People are getting around the FCC's import ban on new gadgets from DJI. The Verge's Sean Hollister bought an Osmo Pocket four for $659 from Timu and got it in four days from Oregon. It's not DJI selling it, however. It appears third parties are getting gadgets from China to feed the demand. Other companies are getting creative to get around the ban. Drone maker HoverAir just got its new Versa certified by calling it a camera that flies rather than a drone. The FCC is so on it. Retail and service workers are fed up of your meta glasses and don't wanna be in your TikToks. The Verge's Mia Sato reports how public facing workers have been filmed, harassed, and creeped out by AI powered glasses. And because it's their job, they can't just walk away. US law offers little help. Public recording is broadly legal, and workplace protection has left a corporate policy. So you may start seeing no recording signs popping up at your local Target sooner than you think. You can read more at theverge.com. That's ninety seconds on the verge for Thursday, 08/20/2026. You're listening to Deepgram Flux TTS. Different voices, same model, all ready to speak. Flux TTS is a streaming text to speech model built for voice agents. Flux reads the room. It holds context across the conversation turn after turn. Turn. With consistent tone, interruption handling, and plenty of personality. So your agents keep it flowing and customers can just keep talking. Try Deepgram Flux TTS free now until September 12. Visit deepgram.com slash keep talking. Terms apply. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsored jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and …