The new Google TV update is a serious attempt to get you to watch AI releases from your couch

Google TV, the operating system primarily serving successor devices to Google’s defunct Chromecast product lineis far from being omnipresent when compared to the extremely popular Roku operating system and Samsung’s Tizen, but for what it’s worth, GTV is the one do its best to integrate AI into the user experience. And one upcoming change announced Monday at CES will bring image and video generation via Google Gemini’s Nano Banana family of text-to-image conversion models to your TV.

Like everything announced at CES, the implicit promise is that people will want to use it, and the suite of features outlined here is, I must admit, intriguing.

Some AI assistant features are mentioned in this announcement, but since the advantage of Google TV over most smart TV operating systems is that it’s connected to your Google account, the most exciting 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 used on your smartphone, but from the comfort of your couch this time. This means adding weird effects to your family photos via the Remix Photos functionality and the ability, according to Google’s press release about the update, to “turn memories into immersive cinematic slideshows.”

This next capability is listed separately in Google’s press release, although it looks a bit like the first: “Use Nano Banana and Veo to reimagine your personal photos or create original media right on your TV.”

As the photos accompanying the ad make clear, much of what’s on offer here is designed to entice viewers into watching a garbage generator.

Google brings Nano Banana and Veo to Google TV: AI enters the living room https://t.co/XpFywvt6Bw

-HDblog (@HDblog) January 5, 2026

In a single image, Google AI Premium users are invited to create videos. Another shows the real video creation interfacewhich features what looks like examples of animated Pixar-style videos with suggested prompts such as “Fluffy fish swimming on coral reefs made with sponge yarn.” There is a pop-up at the bottom of this menu with the text “Describe your video…”. Below that is instructional text on how to press and hold the mic button on your remote to speak.

All of this paints a picture of an activity you’re supposed to enjoy in your living room: the “generate videos of our family members” game, perhaps. But the window decoration is healthier and more child-friendly than Sora’s. brain-forward approach to user-generated video.

Anecdotally, most people I know who have tried Sora have had their curiosity extinguished after a few days on the app and don’t really return to it. I can see this also being a problem when generating custom videos on Google TV. But there is, at the very least, something new about playing with the AI ​​while curled up with the dog and a bowl of popcorn.

Google’s release says these features will first be available on select TCL devices and will expand to the rest of the Google TV universe “over the coming months.”