The Google launch today has highlighted the Google Assistant which is currently in preview edition in Google Allo. With the Google Pixel phones and of course Google Home, Assistant is about to get more interactive, and Google is expanding the capabilities of the Assistant with partners.
Lead engineer for Google Assistant Scott Huffman spoke at the event this morning talking about how Google Assistant will be the next open eco-system. Working across as many devices and contexts as possible, Google will offer information from the web, entries from Google Play, YouTube or Google Maps.
Existing partners will be able to automatically interact with users through the Google assistant via deep linking through apps installed on your phone, or things like Snippets from the web. But Google is looking to expand their interaction with the ‘Actions on Google’ developer platform which will launch in early December. Actions on Google will let developers access two main types of interactions:
- Direct Actions
- Conversation Actions
Direct Actions are for direct commands like Turn on lights or Play music on Spotify. Conversation Actions will be for commands or requests that require a bit more information.
Actions will be able to be given to the Google Assistant using Voice or Text or Hybrid actions to tell it to do something. Google is also looking to make this experience as seamless as possible not force people learn how to use commands – Simply ask Google how to do something and Google will find the right kind of help for you.
Google will be making the Assistant available on many different devices – including mass market consumer devices, or even smaller enthusiast devices like the Raspberry Pi, you’ll be able to get the Google Assistant to help on these devices.
To get more information on the Google Assistant SDK you can check out the developer page at developers.google.com/actions
