Do you know what is Google Assistant?
Think about Siri on Apple devices and Alexa on the Amazon’s devices. Google Assistant is a virtual assistant that aims to make your life easier, providing you use Google’s devices.
The software allows you to have a natural conversation between you and Google. It’s one Assistant that’s ready to help you throughout your day. The first instance appeared in Google’s new smart messaging app Google Allo to help you in group conversations. But that’s just the beginning. The tech giant is deploying the software across its newly launched range of devices that work across different places, contexts and situations. Google Assistant is built into the hardware that you are gradually expected to depend on every day.
Google’s deployment strategy to roll out its virtual assistant closely resembles Apple’s integration of Siri and the integration of Alexa into all of Amazon’s devices. The software is integrated in the hardware and in the initial stage of introduction this will limit its availability to users.
On the other hand, this strategy will likely help the company in a number of ways. Remember Alexa’s skills exploded to over 3000 in two years time since Amazon Echo was launched.
In a similar manner, but in a condensed process, Google is launching Google Home into a market that Amazon has mostly controlled since the launch of its Echo device at the end of 2014. The company is likely hoping that Google Assistant will enables it to stand out in the device market and this is actually very much possible as Google is before all a search engine with a vast ecosystem.
So far, Google Assistant is integrated only into a few devices and apps – the Pixel smartphone, Google Home, and its messaging app Allo. This means that updates can be rolled out much faster than if developers needed to go through third parties like they do with Android. The company also plans to provide developers with a software developer kit (SDK) sometime in December, so they can add Google Assistant to their apps and devices, vastly increasing the reach of the virtual assistant and Google’s network of connected things.
It seems, Google aims to compete shoulder to shoulder with Apple and Amazon and it is pretty well equipped to do so very successfully.
