Google gave third-party developers their first portal into the Google Home virtual assistant on Thursday: the ability to make their artificial intelligence carry on conversations with Google Home users.
In a jab at Amazon, whose competing Alexa virtual assistant offers third-party integrations via "skills" that users must enable, Google noted that its approach, called "actions," mimics real human conversation.
"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," the company told developers in a blog post.
As with Google Home's native functions, such as checking your calendar or monitoring traffic and weather, third-party actions are performed by first saying "OK, Google," followed by the name of the service you want to use. Saying "OK Google, talk to Personal Chef," for instance, will prompt the Personal Chef action to read you a recipe.
This third-party support is crucial to Google Home's ability to compete with Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo. Although the Home is an attractive speaker (and at $129, priced $50 less than the Echo), it is playing catchup to the vast number of Alexa skills, which include everything from ordering pizza to checking Google's own Gmail and Maps.
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Google recognizes this, of course, and the company is planning to offer more integrations for its developers beyond enabling conversations. Those integrations will extend to the Google Assistant, which in addition to powering Google Home also offers voice-activated interactions on the Pixel smartphone.
"To be a truly successful Assistant, it should be able to connect users across the apps and services in their lives," Google Project Manager Jason Douglas wrote in a blog post.
Douglas wrote that the company plans to enable support for purchases and bookings, for instance, as well as "deeper Assistant integrations" for the Pixel and the Allo chat app.