Last year in January, Google, a worldwide popular search engine giant, announced that its Google Assistant, AI-powered virtual assistant, was available on over 1 billion devices. This was ten times as much as the rival Amazon had earlier announced for Alexa. And now Google has announced that its Google assistant has more than 500 million active monthly users. It’s also available in over 90 countries and 30 languages.
The announcement was made by Manuel Bronstein, Vice President of Product, Google Assistant, in a blog post, who added that the active user figure also included smart speakers, smart displays, phones, TV, cars, and more. Bronstein further announced new features at CES (Consumer Electronic Show) 2020 which are aimed at making assistant more helpful throughout the day. The new features that have been introduced by Google include ‘scheduled actions’ where you’d be able to ask the Assistant to turn on/off or start/stop a compatible smart device at the time of your choosing.
Google also announced that there’d be more smart devices from top brands that can work with the assistant such as August Smart Locks, Philips Hue HDMI Sync Box, Telus Wi-Fi Hub routers, GE Appliances Ultrafresh Front Load Washer, MOEN shower, D-Link Outdoor Wi-Fi Spotlight camera, and VIAROOM Smart, among others.
Similarly, other features include ‘household notes’ that help clear out the clutter of paper notes around the house and ensure these notes can be seen in one central location by creating digital sticky notes with the Assistant on your Smart Display. Google also previewed a new experience that allows with a natural reading of long-form content.
Unlike traditional screen readers, this experience is built on new voice datasets and helps create more expressive and natural sounding voices, which makes it easier to listen for a longer period of time. New voice actions have also been added for people to better control their privacy. Moreover, Android TV has also been updated to make it easier for TV manufacturers to build far-field mics into their TVs.
“We are focused on making the Assistant simpler to use and more helpful every day, and this is just a first peek at what you can expect from us this year,” states Google.
