Google first launched Google Assistant in 2016, so the virtual assistant is now five years old. At the beginning of its existence, virtual assistants did seem strange to some people, but now Google Assistant is one of the services that is widely used.
Initially, Google Assistant was also present on a limited basis. Google only brings it on Google Home speakers for the United States, and only supports English and German on Pixel smartphones.
“Today, Google Assistant is available in more than 90 countries, nearly 30 languages, offers 10 voices to choose from and works with more than 100 million smart home devices, including lights, security systems, and thermostats,” Google wrote in an official statement received, Thursday (14/10/2021).
Not only in terms of scope, Google has also brought various features and innovations in this virtual assistant over the last five years. One of the breakthroughs made was the application of BERT, a neural transformer that Google invented in 2018 to the Assistant.
This implementation helps the Assistant service understand longer contexts and dialogues. Not only that, with the application of BERT, users can have more natural back and forth conversations, such as ‘Tell me an Interesting Fact’ or ‘Help Me Speak English’.
Other Capabilities of Google Assistant
Google Assistant also allows users to access a lot of information, including handling small things. Users can ask a number of things, such as “Where is the nearest pharmacy?” to “Count 350,000 divided by 4”.
In 2020, information about recipes searched through Google Assistant increased by more than 8 times. Google also noted banana bread to be the most requested recipe by users worldwide.
Armed with the Google Assistant feature, users can also use it to set the burning time by saying, “Set Time 5 Minutes”. This trend also has an impact on timer commands being used more in 2020 than ever before.
Through this virtual assistant service, users can also support Work from Home or School from Home activities. “Add ‘math lessons’ to calendar,” is one of the commands you can use to set your daily schedule.
Google Assistant Now Can Say Difficult Names
Previously, Google Assistant has also added the latest update for the pronunciation of names that are difficult or require special pronunciation.
“We want Google Assistant to recognize and pronounce people’s names accurately as often as possible, especially less common ones,” the company wrote in a blog post on Friday (4/30/2021).
This feature will later allow users to provide examples of the pronunciation of names that the Google Assistant system will accept. That way, the system will be better able to recognize names that are quite difficult to pronounce.
This feature will be released in the next few days, with the temporary support language being English.
“We hope to soon expand to more languages,” he said.
(NFL)
