About two weeks ago, we informed you that Google Assistant had been spotted on an alpha build of the Google App. As skeptical as we may have been to the news that Google may be making the Assistant available to the masses, well, it is now official.
“The Google Assistant will begin rolling out this week to English users in the U.S., followed by English in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as German speakers in Germany. We’ll continue to add more languages over the coming year.” That was the official statement from Google. The devices must also have at least 1.5 Gb of memory and a screen resolution of 720p or higher.
Making Google Assistant available to all Android phones (not all really, but those running Android 6.0 and up, which is about 30 percent of current active devices) is a great move from Google, especially to consumers and geeks like myself. An update to the Google Search app should be arriving soon and enable the new voice interface on all devices that can handle it.
As other tech companies have plans on launching their own AI assistants such as Samsung’s Bixby, Huawei and even Nokia, Google’s move to make the Assistant available on more phones will easily propel the company in securing a huge user base.
Google is also opening up the Google Assistant to OEMs, with the just-announced LG G6 being the first to ship with the Assistant, followed by Nokia’s latest kids on the block. We should be seeing more and more devices launch with the Assistant right out of the box.
I am not sure how many people actually use these virtual assistants, but we do have a forum entry that you are free to take part in and let us know if you do use virtual assistants or not.
