Just a few weeks after launching Google Assistant, the internet giant is taking a page from Apple and opening its new platform up for developers to create chatbots for the voice-activated personal assistant.
Dubbed Conversation Actions by Google, the tools enable developers, companies and third parties to create bots that can answer questions and, in the future, sell things, as well as book reservations, via voice.
In a blog post, Google said: “The Google Assistant brings together all of the technology and smarts we’ve been building for years, from the Knowledge Graph to Natural Language Processing. To be a truly successful Assistant, it should be able to connect users across the apps and services in their lives. This makes enabling an ecosystem where developers can bring diverse and unique services to users through the Google Assistant really important.”
Google went on to say that, starting Thursday (Dec. 8), developers can build Conversation Actions for Google Home and request to become part of an early access partner program for upcoming platform features.
“Conversation Actions let you engage your users to deliver information, services and assistance. And the best part? It really is a conversation — users won’t need to enable a skill or install an app, they can just ask to talk to your action,” said Google, noting that, for now, it gave developers two samples of what is possible: “Just say ‘OK Google, talk to Number Genie’ or try ‘OK Google, talk to Eliza’ for the classic 1960s AI exercise.”
In November, Alphabet, Google’s parent, rolled out Google Home, its answer to Amazon’s Echo, which also features Google Assistant. Back then, Google said developer tools would be rolled out in December.
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