14 DAY TRIAL // Google announced today its plans to overhaul the Google Assistant virtual personal assistant app for Android smartphones with better phone integration, several new languages, and more.
Google Assistant was released more than a year and a half, and it's currently being used by millions of Android and iPhone users worldwide, so Google decided to upgrade it by the end of the year with new features, including support for more than 30 new languages, deeper phone integration, and a better experience across devices.
In the coming months, Google Assistant will be able to speak Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian, Hindi, Indonesian, and Thai on both Android and iPhone devices, but the rest of the promised languages will arrive later this year, according to Google. At the moment, Google Assistant supports only eight languages, so by the end of 2018 it will support 38.
"Android users are all around the world, so from the start, our goal has been to bring the Assistant to as many people, languages, and locations as possible," said Nick Fox, Vice President of Product at Google. "We’re also making the Assistant multilingual later this year, so families or individuals that speak more than one language can speak naturally to the Assistant."
Better experience across devices, deeper phone integration
Google Assistant speaking your native language is the best thing that could have ever happened to Google's virtual personal assistant for Android smartphones, but that's not all, as the search giant also plans to make the entire experience better across all of your devices to be able to more easily control your smart home and keep track of your daily routines.
For this, Google wants to add location-based reminders to Google Assistant, along with Routines, a feature that the company announced last year and which will help you get multiple tasks done at once with a single voice command. On top of that, Google has worked closely with phone makers and carrier to bring deeper integration for its virtual personal assistant.
To achieve this goal, Google wants to announce an Assistant Mobile OEM program in the coming months, to allow phone manufacturers to build deeper integration of the Google Assistant into their devices. As such, future Android phones will have device-specific commands and other custom features. Google says that first phone makers to add these changes are Sony Mobile, LG, and Xiaomi.