Buried somewhere below the artificially intelligent gadgets and gimmicks at CES 2025 (the robot vacuum with mechanical sock-tidying arm gets our vote), a battle is brewing among connected TV devices. Google, Skyworth, Samsung, and even Apple are stepping up their streaming hardware games in 2025, with more affordability and—you guessed it—more AI. Following the launch of Google TV Streamer in September 2024—a device billed as the Chromecast successor—the next-generation of Google TV has been teased at CES 2025. As expected, it involves deeper integration of Gemini into Google TV—which in turn is the natural successor to Android TV (although Operator Tier has a longer shelf life). More natural conversational requests are a big focus for Google, to drive not only…