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Search giant wants to make its new ‘conversational’ digital assistant as pervasive as possible.
Google late Wednesday unveiled an upgraded personal digital assistant designed to respond conversationally to any thought or query you might have.
Aptly titled Google Assistant, it uses the company’s artificial intelligence technology to provide a more intuitive experience.
"We want users to have an ongoing, two-way dialogue with Google," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, during the keynote presentation at this year’s I/O developer conference.
In practice, this means Assistant is not only capable of answering initial questions, but also follow-up questions. For example, a user could ask for a certain location, and then ask how long it would take to get there on foot without having to repeat where they want to go.
"This has historically been really hard to do with computers," Pichai said.
"Every single conversation is different. Every single context is different. And we are working hard to do this for billions of conversations for billions of users around the world," he added.
This is all part of Google’s strategy of becoming an integral and pervasive part of people’s daily lives, "so you can summon Google’s help no matter where you are or what the context," said Google, in a blog post.
That means on smartphones, wearables, in Android-equipped cars, and in the near future, at home.
"We’ve been thinking hard about how to bring this vision of Google Assistant into your home," said Pichai.
The first real-world example of this vision is Google Home: a cylindrical speaker that comes with Google Assistant.
It connects to the Internet, allowing owners to search the Web, and it also acts as a voice-activated controller for Google’s other home devices, such as its Chromecast streaming TV stick and, in future, its range of Nest home automation devices – such as thermostats and smoke alarms.
"Our aspiration is to make the Assistant useful and enjoyable in one of the most important places in your world," said Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management at Google.
Resembling a giant air-freshener, the lack of buttons or screen highlights its ambition to provide a voice-led, hands-free experience.
"We think it will be a beautiful addition to any room in your house," said Queiroz…who might just have outed himself as Glade’s biggest fan.
Google Home will be available "later this year," Queiroz said.
With Home, Google is going head-to-head with Amazon; the e-commerce giant introduced its own in-home speaker/digital assistant, Echo, in November 2014.
"Credit to the team at Amazon for creating a lot of excitement in this space," Pichai said.
Google Assistant will also be integrated into its new WhatsApp rival, Allo. "If you’re planning a dinner with friends, you can ask the assistant to suggest restaurants nearby, all in one thread," Google said.
In addition, Google also showed off the latest versions of Android, its Android Wear wearables platform, and new developments in virtual reality.
"Google’s mission ‘to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ is truer and more important than ever before," Google said.
