Google Opens the Smart Home to Third-Party AI Agents via MCP

Google has unveiled the Google Home MCP integration, which lets third-party AI agents into its smart home ecosystem. According to Taylor Leman, product manager for Google Home & Nest, any agent that supports the Model Context Protocol — the named ones include Google Antigravity, Claude, Hermes and Open Claw — will be able to work securely with all the devices and event history in Google Home and act on the user's behalf.

What it offers

As Google envisions it, access to “real” home events opens up new scenarios. An agent could analyze footage from several cameras at once — for instance, answering what a child got up to after coming home from school — or, using the history of device states, tally how many loads of laundry were run over the week and how long the lights stayed on. It could also address a person by voice: sending an audio message through a Google Home speaker once it finishes a task, say, or building the user a custom home control dashboard.

That said, MCP does not replace the new Gemini for Home assistant, which has taken over from Google Assistant. The speakers are still run by Gemini, while third-party agents get an additional layer of control and work with devices through their own interfaces.

Price and security

At launch the feature is available only to subscribers of the Google Home Premium Advanced plan in the US ($20 a month or $200 a year), with the rollout happening over the coming weeks. Setting it up requires creating a Google Cloud project and configuring it for Home MCP.

Giving AI access to smart locks, thermostats and climate systems predictably raises questions of privacy and security. Google assures that Home MCP introduces rate limits and safeguards — an agent won't be allowed to unlock a door, for example. Even so, Leman cautions, depending on the agent, connecting to Home MCP could lead to “unexpected or even undesirable behavior,” and he advises reviewing the platform's terms and conditions.

An infrastructure play

The Verge's author notes that consumer scenarios are only the tip of the iceberg. Google's main bet is on developers. Having opened up its smart home API in 2024, and now the agentic integration, the company is angling for the role of an infrastructure layer under a B2B2C model: Google provides the AI and the hardware foundation, and others build their own products on top — much the way AWS became the bedrock for internet businesses.

The open question is trust. Over the years Google has launched and buried plenty of smart home platforms — Android @ Home, Weave, Project Brillo, Works with Nest, Google Assistant. Developers will have to decide whether the company really means to stick around this time. The irony, the author concedes, is that the only thing spoiling the fun of these new possibilities is the backdrop of a week filled with headlines about how AI is going to be the end of us all.

Source: The Verge