Google recently announced Food Pick-up and Delivery Actions for the Google Assistant in the US, along with the ability to setup Routines, a feature which lets users automate the Assistant’s tasks. The announcement of the new features was made during the company’s annual developer conference, I/O 2018, and while the features are definitely welcomed by users, Google seems to be a leg behind Amazon which already offers the same through its digital assistant Alexa.
In India alone, Amazon’s Alexa offers more than 15,000 skills which range from food ordering to cab bookings. These skills are what makes the Amazon Echo range of smart speakers stand out in India’s smart home market, while the newly launched Google Home seems to be struggling to form partnerships to offer third-party Actions in the country. For the uninitiated, Google Assistant’s Actions and Amazon Alexa’s Skills work in a similar fashion, allowing users to take advantage of voice commands to make the AI helpers complete tasks such as ordering food, finding cabs, booking movie tickets, bringing up music and more. Assistant’s Routines function also works pretty much the same as Alexa’s Routines, allowing users to automate tasks such as setting an alarm and turning on the lights at the same time.
While Indians have had a taste of both Skills and Routines thanks to Amazon’s growing presence in the smart speaker market, the same has not been the case with Google and its Assistant-wielding Home range of smart speakers. The Google Home launched in India with the Google Assistant carrying forward the same features we have already seen on smartphones. The launch of the Google Home seemed rushed and incomplete without essential features such as third-party service integrations and the ability to setup routines.
Did You Know: Google sees more usage of the Google Assistant on the JioPhone in India than all smartphones combined.
While Google does plan to bring these much needed integrations to Assistant in India, users will have to wait a while before it happens. Google feels that the lack of services and other features on the Assistant is a fair criticism from users in India, but because the Google Home is a speaker, its prominent usage is around Music and Media. With respect to the Google Home, having quality music and media services is Google’s minimum bar to launch in a country. Productivity tools like setting reminders and alarms is a secondary consideration, while the third vital lookout is locally relevant answers from Google Search. Updating Assistant’s features is and was not one of Google’s main consideration before the Google Home was launched in India.
It’s not like third-party service integrations and Actions for Assistant are not important for Google, but because it involves working with partners and securing commercial deals, the process takes longer and will take some more time before users can see results in India. Google’s strategy for bringing services to the Assistant in India and approaching potential partners is to wait before devices like the Home become more popular in the country. However, this shouldn’t have stopped them from forming such partnerships given that the Google Assistant has been around on smartphones in the country (even feature phones now) for a while.
Nevertheless, Google wants to be more aggressive in internationalising the Assistant and will introduce new features to in India after testing the waters in the US. The Assistant’s Routines feature is also not headed to the country anytime soon, but Google is looking to use breakthroughs in its WaveNet technology to introduce new India-specific voices over the next year or so. The company is aiming to refresh Assistant’s voices worldwide in every language and introduce multiple voices for each language, including Hindi.
In India, Google, surprisingly, sees more usage of the Google Assistant on the JioPhone than all smartphones combined. The company has noticed that JioPhone users use the Google Assistant as the UI of the phone to perform basic navigational tasks and the number of queries seen everyday on the JioPhone is higher than any premium or high-end device in India.