Google Assistant, the search giant's alternative to Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa has started rolling out to Android smartphones running Marshmallow and Nougat versions of the mobile OS. At Mobile World Congress, the company had promised to bring Google Assistant to more devices, and today it is making good on that promise.
Google Assistant is an upgrade over Google Now, and offers a conversational user interface. The AI-powered was first showcased at Google I/O 2016, and was later launched with the company's Pixel smartphones. The Assistant was later made available on the Google Home speaker, Google's Allo messaging app, and more recently on Android Wear 2.0. Google wants Assistant to power as many platforms as it can, including Android TVs and set-top boxes.
The Google Assistant will first hit devices in the US, followed by users in Australia, Canada and the UK in the English language. The Assistant will also be made available in Germany, in the local language. The company also plans to add more languages this year, but there is nothing specific revealed around these plans.
Google Assistant served as one of the biggest selling points for Pixel devices and with Assistant on more Android smartphones, Google will have significantly larger pool of data for its machine learning algorithm. Google Assistant can be accessed on any supported device by updating Google Play services. Once installed, users can launch the AI assistant by pressing the Home button.