Google Assistant will support more than 30 languages by the end of this year and will also become multilingual, the search engine giant has announced today.
Google Assistant was available only in English language at its release in February last year and now supports eight languages – Spanish, German, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and Japanese.
The company would add 22 more languages over the course of the year.
“Android users are all around the world, so from the start, our goal has been to bring the Assistant to as many people, languages, and locations as possible. The Assistant is already available in eight languages, and by the end of the year it will be available in more than 30 languages, reaching 95 percent of all eligible Android phones worldwide,” Nick Fox, Google’s vice president of product, said in a blog post.
He said Norwegian, Hindi, Swedish, Thai, Danish and Dutch will be among the new languages to be added in Google Assistant.
Google Assistant will be available in more than 30 languages by the end of 2018
Fox did not disclose that whether Assistant will have Cantonese and Mandarin, two major languages which Apple’s voice assistant Siri supports, among 18 others.
Multilingual support is particularly helpful for those who speak more than one language.
The feature will be initially available in three languages — English, German and French, with more coming later.
“With this new feature, the Assistant will be able to understand you in multiple languages fluently. If you prefer to speak German at work, but French at home, your Assistant is right there with you,” Fox added.
Besides language extension and multilingual support, Google’s smart assistant is also getting two new features, Routines and location-based reminders in the coming weeks.
Routines, which was announced back in October 2017, will allow you to create personalized commands and responses –for example, “Hey Google,I am back home”, could play the music and turn on the lights.
The feature will allow the users to use up to six routines “that help with your morning, commutes to and from work, and evening at home,” Fox noted.
Another feature set to roll out in the weeks ahead is location-based reminders.
Currently, the feature is available on smartphones, but it will now make its way into Google Home smart speakers as well.
For example, you can ask the Assistant on your smart speaker to remind you to buy milk when you’re at a grocery store.
