Alphabet Inc (GOOG, GOOGL) is holding the annual Google I/O conference for developers this week, and already techies have gotten some really cool news: The search company is rolling out its own AI-powered virtual assistant, creatively named “Google assistant.”
More importantly, the Google assistant will soon accompany two new products from GOOG, and the description of what these products do is pretty neat.
It also probably isn’t making the top brass at Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) or Facebook Inc (FB) too happy. GOOG shareholders might be smiling, though.
Google Home
The first product that’ll come replete with this Google assistant is called Google Home.
Frankly, it sounds pretty similar to the Amazon Echo, which comes with Amazon’s AI-powered virtual assistant, Alexa. The voice-activated Google Home…
“…lets you enjoy entertainment, manage everyday tasks, and get answers from Google — all using conversational speech. With a simple voice command, you can ask Google Home to play a song, set a timer for the oven, check your flight, or turn on your lights.”
This is definitely the GOOG answer to Amazon’s popular Echo; the Echo can also help you manage tasks, search the web, play songs, set timers and check flights. That turning on the lights thing, though — that’s new.
Of course, Alphabet also owns Nest, the smart home company, so I expect there’ll be some nice synergies between Nest products and Google Home.
Google Home will hit shelves later this year.
Allo, GOOG’s Answer to Facebook Messenger
The Google assistant will also come standard on GOOG’s new messaging app, Allo. Based on your phone number, Allo will allow you to communicate with any user, regardless of if they use Android or iOS.
Not only can you have normal conversations with friends — with stickers and emojis of course — you can also call on the Google assistant to help you with day-to-day tasks, schedules and decisions like what movies to see (nearby), or where to go to dinner. Suggestions are personalized, and should become better as you use it more.
The “Smart Reply” feature on Allo will even suggest responses to messages you receive, taking context into consideration. And if you’re worried about getting spied on, GOOG allows you to enable Incognito mode, which enables end-to-end encryption as well as expiring messages.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg probably isn’t pleased with this, since Facebook Messenger is a big part of his long-term vision, and he’s also putting a lot of stock in Facebook M, a personal AI assistant.
GOOG noted that Allo will be available this summer, along with a video-calling app called Duo.
And with I/O set to go on until Friday, we can expect more exciting announcements today and tomorrow.
As of this writing, Robert Martin had no position in any of the aforementioned securities.
