Today, February 23, Google announced two new advancements for its Assistant by the end of the year. These include the app turning multilingual and supporting over 30 languages. The entire newness will bring Assistant closer to 95% of Android smartphones.
The Assistant being multilingual will enable a user to speak to it in multiple languages, the ones they know. As for covering so many languages, it will be easier for any user to speak in their native at home, and any other language at work or while with friends, and so on.
Previously, despite the app understanding multiple languages, there was no way to switch between those. In order to switch, the language selection in settings would have to be changed. This part will now be more convenient for the users.
As for multilingual support, the languages are English, French and German to begin with. Google confirms that further languages will be added with time. As the company puts it, this allows the app to grow globally.
For now, the app supports a total of 8 languages, which will bump to 30 by the year-end. In the coming months, the Assistant will learn Hindi, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Indonesian and Thai. Google will announce the next series after this rollout.
These will provide an advantage for Assistant over its rivals Alexa and Siri. Amazon’s Echo speakers may have covered more markets across the world, but Alexa can so far speak only English, German and Japanese. Siri only has covered about 20 languages till now.
Assistant will as well receive another update in form of Assistant Mobile OEM program for the mobile manufacturers. This will be rolled out by next week for helping the manufacturers integrate ‘more deeply’ along with location-based reminders and launch of Routines.
How cool does this all sound for your favorite smart assistant? What else do you expect from the app in future? Share your views in comments below. Keep following our space for the next update about Google Assistant as it surfaces.
