Should smart assistant devices be more bossy?

Some thoughts on the Assistant metaphor.

I have a Google Home in my bedroom. In the mornings, I use it for an alarm, to play music, check the weather, listen to news and sometimes check my calendar. This works well for me, because it means I can leave my phone in the other room and sleep peacefully without notifications and blue light.

The other morning I snoozed my alarm a couple of times, then realised too late that I had completely forgotten about an early call I’d scheduled. This got me thinking: these features could be more joined-up. Snoozing my alarm when there’s a meeting in my calendar should result in a gentle nudge that this is a bad idea.

This is the kind of proactivity that I would expect from a real life personal assistant, or a wise old butler like Alfred in Batman. I wonder how far Google Assistant should follow this metaphor.

Am I actually just re-enabling the notifications that I’ve banished to the living room? Maybe I’m just being lazy by trying to outsource this to technology. Or am I giving my brain more space to relax or think about other things?