Back at CES 2025, Google presented a Google TV prototype featuring Gemini 2.5 running on TCL TVs, with voice capture handled via the remote control, but with all processing performed in the cloud. Faultline got unusually excited by this development, and with the dust now settled from IBC 2025, we can lay out several implementations which showcased where the industry is heading. But first, let’s clarify the relationship between Android TV and Google TV. The simplest way to picture the stack is Android TV as the operating system (OS), while Google TV is the user interface (UI) layer that runs on top of it. So, Android TV is the underlying software powering smart TVs and streaming devices. It provides core…