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Google’s AI assistant now has services like a dog doctor and wine guide

Google Home
Image Credit: Google

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A new batch of 10 conversation actions are now available available on Google Assistant.

Dr. Doggy will tell you whether it’s safe for a dog to eat something, while My Wine Guide promises to be a digital sommelier that helps you understand what wine goes best with what you plan to eat.

A conversations action, like an Alexa skill, is a command or service made by third party developers for Google Assistant.

The new batch of actions brings the list of available actions to roughly 75. Its major competitor, Alexa, announced last week that it has surpassed 8,000 available skills.


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Google Assistant can already tell you about bus times in Singapore; trash pickup schedule in Auburn, Alabama; and when the public pool is open in Seattle. Actions added today continue Google Assistant’s venture into city services, and will tell you about the Tube schedule in London and public transportation in Prague.

The Actions on Google platform for the creation of Google Assistant actions is roughly two months old. Following the release of the first batch of actions from WebMD, Food Network, and VentureBeat, subsequent skills have been made available from brands like BuzzFeed and HBO’s Westworld.

Like IFTTT with Google Assistant, AutoVoice extends the range of things you can do with a Google Home. The AutoVoice action lets you send commands to make phone calls, check your push notifications, send chat messages, or track a package.

The Smart Voice action also lets you control Internet of Things devices.

Izzy the Islander is an action named after the mascot of Texas A&M University — Corpus Christi that shares facts about and news from the college.

Music Ear Trainer, Spelling Master, and The Magic Door, a game that’s already popular on Alexa-enabled devices, were also recently released.

Google Assistant conversation actions are available only on Google Home today. Third party actions will be available on Pixel smartphones and other devices later this year, a member of the Google Assistant team told VentureBeat.