This morning during their partner walk, Google announced a number of changes and deeper integrations into your mobile experience. There are some that users will notice immediately, others are more about the capability expansion of assistant and the way it works with you and your hardware to make your life easier.
Messages Integration
Users of Google Messages will soon see some changes that will make their lives easier. The live demonstration shown today was centred around a scenario of a dinner offer between friends with a simple suggestion of tapas tonight. The AI recognised the timeline, then based on the location of the users searched for tapas restaurants nearby and offered options to both users. Once one was selected it was sent and both parties had the preferred option clear. A simple demonstration, but the AI recognised a need from a two-word trigger, offered options to the users involved and put into the conversation a solution that meets that need.
Furthering their AI and machine learning, their demonstration showed how far Assistant has come, how much effort goes into the growth of the algorithms behind Assistant and how much can be achieved with Assistant.
Noting that a simple question (also demonstrated) such as “What’s the weather tomorrow?” has been identified in over 20,000 variants of the question. From that simple question, “Whats the weather in Barcelona tomorrow?” and “Is tomorrow a nice day?” are only a few variants of that question. This presents a huge contextual problem for the engineers. They are obviously continuing to work on Assistant’s capability to recognise triggers based on a variety of factors from simple trigger words, location and calendar appointments.
Further partnerships allowing integration for practical uses
A partnership announced with Lufthansa, Swiss and Austrian Air in Europe has allowed a simple check in process for flights. So simple in fact it’s a case of “OK Google, check in for my flight”. As long as your flight details are in your email and the check-in is open, Assistant will check you in and provide your boarding pass QR code to you on your device’s display.
A lot of work has gone into Assistant to-date, and with a whole lot more going into it, the winners at the end of the day are us users who engage with Google Assistant on a regular basis.
