Google Pushing to Make Google Assistant More Powerful for India

Google now pushing developers to make apps compatible with Google Assistant in India, the same way as Alexa.

Google Assistant moving beyond smartphones now. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Now that Amazon has launched Alexa and its supported products, like Echo and Echo Dot in India, it looks like Google has read the cue and is setting up the space to bring its voice-assisted armoury to the country.

And before they do that, Google wants to have enough apps compatible with Google Assistant, which is why they’ll let developers add more India-centric services to its ecosystem via Actions of Google.

For anyone who wants to build for the Assistant, resources such as developer tools, documentation and a simulator are available on the "Actions on Google" developer website, Google informs.

Eligible developers can also join the Google Assistant "Developer Community Programme" to get started with building apps for the Assistant.

When apps are built to work with the Assistant, users can simply tell Assistant to connect with the app using a voice command, whether it's on supported Android phones or iPhones.

This model works exactly like how Alexa interacts in the form of skills with varied apps right now, and lets you do things like listen to music, ask her to read out the top news stories or even book Uber.

Also Read: Amazon Echo Dot First Impression: Desi Alexa Not Quite There Yet

When you consider the strength in depth over at Google, and its expertise in the country for all these years, it’s hard not to see Google Assistant having a leg up over its rival voice assistant services.

Google has products akin to Echo which are called Google Home and this year, they added the Google Home Mini which goes up against the smaller Echo Dot from Amazon.

Amazon has been going hard to make Alexa acclimatise with the Indian accent, and to some extent they’ve succeeded.

But in a market like India, where the majority don’t have access to the internet, devices like Echo and Google Home along with services that work on voices like Alexa, have a long road ahead before they become anywhere close to being mainstream.

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