Google Duplex was introduced to the world nearly two years ago — and it scared the hell out of a lot of people due to how life like it was. It slowly rolled out to various US states giving them the Google Assistant voice calling feature.
Duplex is the voice calling feature of Google Assistant that allows it to make a call and hold a conversation with a human at the other end of the line in order to make reservations or check business details for you.
VentrueBeat have today reported that Google have quietly updated their support page to include Australia (and the UK and Canada) in the supported countries list. It seems that the new rollout is not for Australian users but for Google to determine the opening hours of Australian businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that the rollout is part of the effort that Sundar Pichai mentioned recently of them using Google Duplex to contact businesses about their hours during the pandemic so they can be listed correctly in Google Search and Google Maps.
This may just be the first step before all the Google Duplex features are rolled out to those countries such as users being able to get Assistant to make calls for them but if that is coming we don’t think it will be any time soon.
This is cool but I want the call screening feature on my Pixel 4!