Home Assistant 2025.8 arrives with new AI Task feature

Home Assistant 2025.8 has arrived. This is the latest version of the open-source smart home automation software, following the 2025.7 release, which brought a new Ask Question action and redesigned Area cards.

The Home Assistant 2025.8 release includes a few AI-related tools. For those who use Home Assistant Voice to talk to an AI chatbot, the Text-to-Speech system will now start to generate its response before the chatbot’s response is complete. This should reduce waiting times for users of Home Assistant cloud voices.

There is a new AI Task integration, which can be used to analyze camera footage or another file, with a text or data output of your choosing. For example, the Home Assistant team suggests you could use this to count the number of chickens viewed on a smart camera. Linked to this feature is the Suggest with AI button, with default entities. This should make it faster and easier to generate data and share blueprints. Plus, there is a new OpenRouter integration, providing access to over 400 LLM models.

On top of these, a few tweaks have been made to the Areas dashboard, with users able to choose whether to show the first camera, image or icon. As well as the OpenRouter integration, there is also a new Volvo integration, allowing users to view the battery level and location of their vehicle. Plus, there is now support for the YoLink Smart Energy Plug 15A (curr. $24.99 at Amazon). The complete release notes for Home Assistant 2025.8 can be found on the company’s website.