Google Assistant now has six new voices and here’s how one can access them on their Android smartphone.
Google Assistant has six new voices, as the company announced at its I/O developer conference last week in Mountain View, California. The Google Assistant will also get its first celebrity’s voice with singer John Legend. The company has indicated that more celebrities could be on the list, though there’s no word on when we can expect more additions. For now, the John Legend voice will be rolled out later and there’s no confirmed date for this either. However, the six new Google Assistant voices are already available on the app for users.
Assistant is available on Android 6.0 and above phones. Google says the Assistant is available on 500 million+ devices, according to the company, which includes Android, iOS phones, Speakers, TVs, etc. So how can users try out the new Google Assistant voices on their smartphones? Here are all the detailed steps to follow.
First, you need to make sure that Google Assistant is set up on your phone and recognises your voice. Just long press the home button on your Android phone to activate the Google Assistant, and then tap on the blue box on the top right corner. This is the Explore section, and on extreme right is the option for detailed Settings with the three vertical dots.
Just tap on the dots, then Settings and then go to Preferences. In here, you should see a new option for Assistant voice, if you are on the latest version. If not, check for updates in the Play Store for the Google Assistant app. We could not see the new Assistant voices on the iOS version of the app. Once you see Assistant voice, tap on the option and it should show a total of eight voices. This includes six new ones, and the two original ones. Users can tap on each one to hear a preview of the new voice, and then select the one they prefer from the menu.
Google Assistant voices now include a total of four female and four male voices for users to pick and choose from. Assistant is also available in Hindi as well on smartphones. However, Google Home Mini and Google Home speaker do not support Hindi for the Assistant yet.
At its I/O conference, Google also showcased a new ability for the Assistant where it can make calls to book a restaurant, a hair salon appointment and checking open/closing hours for a business. The Assistant’s ability to make calls is interesting because it sounds very human, with the right pauses and inflections. Google says this ability will be rolled out in the US first, and will be limited to English for the time being. The Assistant can make these calls, thanks to Google’s new Duplex technology, where the system can carry out natural conversations like a real human.