Google TV is in trouble, and the latest update only makes it worse

The Google TV Streamer is a fine piece of hardware, but Google TV as a platform has rampant issues with bloatware, advertising, and sponsored content that desperately need to be fixed. Since I last toyed with Google TV, I’ve been waiting and hoping for Google to make meaningful changes here.

Unfortunately, looking at the latest big Google TV update that’s just rolled out, it’s blatantly obvious that Google doesn’t care about those things. Instead, it’d rather shove YouTube Shorts and generative AI down our throats. And if I didn’t already want to use Google TV, this just ensured I won’t try switching to it again anytime soon.

One of the reasons I like the Apple TV so much is how clean and uncluttered its software is; the home screen simply shows rows of app icons for the streaming services I use. It’s perfect. Google TV, meanwhile, overloads its home screen with sponsored TV show and movie recommendations, restaurant advertisements, large sponsored sections, and more.

Rather than try to clean this up, the geniuses working on Google TV have decided to make the home screen experience even more distracting. Later this summer, Google will integrate YouTube Shorts into the UI.

They’ll appear under a new “Short videos for you” section, filling your Google TV home screen with YouTube Shorts videos you almost certainly don’t care about. And, in typical Google TV fashion, it doesn’t appear there will be any way to turn this off or disable it. Excellent stuff.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the other part of this update brings a whole lot of AI slop to Google TV. The Gemini tab is getting a new “Create” page where you can create AI-generated images with Nano Banana and videos using Veo.

I’m not surprised that Google wants to AI-ify as many of its products as possible, but prioritizing gen-AI nonsense over fundamental UX issues is just laughable. Google TV’s entire home screen experience is so bad that I couldn’t stick with the platform for more than a week. Google’s solution? Letting users create mindless AI photos and videos. What are we even doing?

I use a Pixel phone as my daily Android phone of choice. I use a pair of Pixel Buds as my preferred wireless earbuds. Practically my entire digital life revolves around Google apps — be it Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Photos, etc. I should be the target demographic for Google TV, but in its current form — and especially where it’s headed following this update — that platform is verging on unusable.

Interacting with Google TV is a constant uphill battle. The first thing you see at the top of the home screen could be a sponsored show or a full-screen ad for Taco Bell. As you scroll down the page, you may see an entire section of content promoted by Target. At every opportunity, Google TV uses its interface to promote or advertise something to you.

These are not new complaints, and I struggle to imagine that Google isn’t aware of them. And yet, adding YouTube Shorts to the home screen and focusing on AI generation tools does absolutely nothing to fix them. If anything, it makes the current Google TV situation worse.

As someone who uses and likes so many of Google’s other products, all of this is extremely disappointing. Google TV could and should be one of the best smart TV platforms on the market, but with the way Google has been handling the OS over the last year or so, it’s quickly become one of the most frustrating to use.

Part of me still wants to give Google TV another shot, and I was seriously considering it a few days ago. But if this latest update is any indication of Google’s current priorities for Google TV, it looks like I’ll be staying with my Apple TV for the foreseeable future.