Google kicked off today’s Google IO Keynote with “Google Assistant”, Google’s new conversational voice assistant. Google Assistant brings two way conversational interaction to Google’s current voice interactions, e.g. OK Google, as well as becoming a platform for voice interactions going forward.
Google Assistant is contextually aware, say you’re standing in front of a statue, you can ask who designed this, and Google assistant will detect your location, understand you’re in front of the statue and report back the artist’s name.
Google is building on their massive search knowledge, experience in natural language processing. Assistant brings conversational understanding that Google thinks is ahead of any other voice based assistant around. Here’s a demo video of how Assistant can work, implemented in Google Home:
Google want to bring deep searching into the platform, want to see a movie? Simply ask Assistant, “What’s on at the movies”? and Assistant will return a selection of movies close to your location, from there you can ask for reviews, watch a trailer or even book tickets. This is an aspiration goal for Google, they will be opening the platform to developers in the coming months to enable this kind of functionality.
Google thinks every conversation is different, every context is different and they are working hard to do this for billions of conversations and users around the world. Assistant will be an ambient experience extending beyond existing devices – Phones, Android Wear, Cars and even into the living room.
We don’t have a release schedule yet but will let you know when we find out.
Are you looking forward to using Google’s enhanced Voice assistant? Let us know below.
Man, this is so cool if it works as seamless as the video.