Google Assistant Gains Six New Voices and John Legend
Google introduces six new lifelike voices for Assistant and announces a celebrity cameo from John Legend to rival competing smart speakers.
Google introduces six new voices to its Assistant platform to compete with recent upgrades to Alexa and Siri. The company reveals a more lifelike version of its spoken AI that features natural pauses and subtleties to create a better dialogue experience. This upgraded Assistant includes both male and female options built on a machine learning technology called Wavenet.
Developers build these new voices to sound closer to how humans actually speak in everyday conversations. Google plans to roll out customized versions of the AI with specific dialects across the globe as it expands the technology. The underlying Wavenet system continues to evolve after 18 months of ongoing development.
In a fun twist, Google brings musician John Legend into the recording studio to add celebrity personality to the smart assistant. Users will be able to access the John Legend voice starting later this year, which turns a famous Alexa Super Bowl ad into a reality for Google. This move pushes Google directly into the spotlight against its biggest competitors in the smart speaker market.