Google Assistant: Is It the Best Humanized Virtual Assistant?

Featured blog by Tom Clark, Database Expert

Artificial Intelligence is one of the fields of information technology sector which has been witnessing a rapid growth over the last 5 years. We saw Google Now, Siri and Cortana being loved by common people all over the world and also the battle between tech giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft to offer a unique solution to the end users by enhancing the capability of their respective AI systems. So far we know that Cortana, Alexa, and Siri are virtual assistants with female personas, except Siri, as it can be both man and woman. However, Google voice search, which is better known as Google Now, lacked any humanized identity. Despite having a female voice, Google Now was more like a mechanized audio response system that answers your queries. It lacked the personal human touch like Apple’s Siri.

Good news is the scenario has changed for Google Now just a few days ago with the launch of Google Home gadget. While launching Google Home, the search engine market leader announced that they have amalgamated the voice search capabilities with a persona and now it will be called as “Google Assistant”. It is literally a virtual assistant that bridges the gap between Apple and Google in terms of “human-like smart assistant service”. Google Assistant may not sound as colloquial as Siri, but it certainly sounds a lot better than Google Now!

Just like Amazon and Apple, Google will sell devices (pixel smartphones, Google Home) and apps (Allo) that feature Google Assistant. In fact, you can download the Allo app on your Android phone today and experience how Google Assistant works right now! As of now, Google Assistant has only a female persona but Google promised that in near future it will upgrade the system to ensure that it offers multiple voices and personas.

Similar to Siri, Alexa and Cortana Google Assistant has conversational features so that the end users feel like they are talking to an actual human being. In fact, it can tell you joke just like your best buddy! In order to build the personality of Google Assistant, the search engine giant utilized “storytellers” from The Onion and Pixar to come up with scripted answers to a wide range of questions. Assistant also has an edge over its competitors’ thanks to Google’s unfathomable knowledge graph and search index.

However, according to Ryan Germick, the main brain behind Google Assistant, there can be some instances when instead of giving a direct reply to a question; it may just read a list of search results. He ensured a superior user experience during the launch of Google Home and once Google Home is available in the market (4^th November), we will be able to experience the true potential of Google Assistant.

Tom Clark is a database expert. He likes to share share his knowledge and ideas on interesting topics like big data, hadoop etc. He also has connections with remote dba experts.