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About 20 conversation actions or services have been added to the Google Assistant in recent weeks.
There’s now a beer guide to tell you the difference between an IPA or an ale, a street dictionary to remind you what it means to “stay woke” or “get hyphy,” and online virtual tours from 360 Jungle.
Google Assistant conversation actions surpassed the 100 count for the first time in recent days. Google Home users can now speak with about 105 third-party services.
Finding a theme isn’t an exact science, but flip through Google Assistant’s third-party services every few weeks and patterns can emerge among the ecosystem of services forming around Google Assistant. For example, city services, elder care, and religion emerged as themes. In this latest batch, one of the themes is having fun.
Narwhal Bacon will serve up random facts and posts shared on Reddit, while Able Style will tell you men’s fashion tips. Hop over to the Able Style website while Google Assistant is talking to you and you can see suggested wardrobe visuals live onscreen. Wardrobe recommendations are made based on local weather, and in the future will be based on your preferences. This one seems a lot more fun and practical when I actually own some of the clothes that Able Style recommends I wear.
Also in this batch: more Internet of Thing (IoT) controllers for devices from Home Bond, Quick Remote, and Stringify. Religion is also top of mind with new actions.
Divine Song is an action that plays songs from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, while Today’s Bible Verse and YouVersion Stories share scripture and Bible stories.
On Sunday, Google made its biggest extension of Google Assistant to existing devices by making the assistant available for phones running Android Marshmallow and Nougat, continuing its spread to devices beyond Google Home and Pixel smartphones.
Google Assistant third-party actions like the kinds mentioned above are still limited to Google Home at this time.
To see the complete list of Google Assistant actions, open the Google Home app, go to “More settings,” and click on “Services.”
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