Google Assistant can be a fantastic help when you want to get small tasks done, but sometimes the AI can’t piece two-and-two together when it comes to context. Fortunately, Google is working hard on making its Assistant understand you better and get tasks done more effectively.
The New Additions to Google’s Assistant
In a post on The Keyword, Google detailed how it will enhance its Assistant’s AI. First up, Google wants to improve how well its Assistant recognizes names.
Google wants people to use Assistant to send messages and makes calls. The problem is, if Google Assistant keeps mixing up names or not recognizing them, people will stop using it.
As such, Google will soon add tools that will help Assistant pick out who exactly you mean. This includes teaching Google Assistant how you enunciate names so it can better identify who you’re talking about.
Google also understands that it’s a bit tricky to set and adjust timers. For instance, if you stammer or pause while saying how much time you want to add to a timer, Google Assistant should take this into consideration.
Now, Google has completely reworked how Assistant handles commands so that it can better understand what you want to do. Google seems very proud of what it achieved, too:
This upgrade uses machine learning technology powered by state-of-the-art BERT, a technology we invented in 2018 and first brought to Search that makes it possible to process words in relation to all the other words in a sentence, rather than one-by-one in order. Because of these improvements, Assistant can now respond nearly 100 percent accurately to alarms and timer tasks. And over time, we’ll bring this capability to other use cases, so Assistant can learn to better understand you.
Google also wants to use this new BERT tech to make Assistant sound less like a robot and more like a real person. The Assistant will recognize both what you’ve previously said and what’s currently on-screen to better deliver the information you’re asking for.
Currently, it seems these changes are only available for Google smart speakers in the US that are set to English. However, if these features are as impressive as they sound, you should expect them to arrive overseas and in different languages.
Assisting the Google Assistant
If you’ve felt frustrated while trying to give Google Assistant commands to do, help is on the way. Hopefully, these changes will both live up to Google’s claims and will roll out worldwide soon.
If you want to get more out of your Google Assistant, it’s a good idea to sit down and really study what it can do. Google Assistant is a powerful tool, but you need to know how to use it to tap into its potential.
