Google Assistant gets a ton of new features and support for new languages

Google is bringing new features to Assistant. The first major one announced is that you can now just type in Assistant to perform a task instead of using your voice. This works great when there are a lot of people around you and you don’t feel comfortable talking to your phone.

Another great feature those of you who travel a lot will love is the option of translating words and sentences with the help of the digital assistant. All you have to do is tap the Google Lens icon, point the camera at the text, and Assistant will do the rest. If it translates a dish of a menu, you can then continue the conversation by saying, for example, “What does it look like?”, and images of the dish will pop up on your screen. Nice!

There are more ways Assistant can make your life easier. You can point the camera towards an ad for a music concert, and it will automatically recognize the band, offer you the option of buying tickets for the show, or adding the event to your calendar.

In order to get Assistant in as many hands as possible, Google is bringing it to the iPhone. It will go head to head with Siri, and it will be interesting to see if it will be able to convince iPhone users to ditch Apple’s solution and opt for the one offered by Google. Additionally, the search giant now also allows any manufacturer to build Assistant into any product it’s making (speakers, toys…).

Another major feature is the option of ordering food via Assistant and paying for it with Android Pay. Just tell Assistant the name of the restaurant that’s supported, place an order, and use your fingerprint to approve the payment with Android Pay.

Finally, Google is adding support for more languages. Starting this summer, Assistant will be available in French, German, Portuguese, and Japanese. Support for Spanish, Italian, and Korean will be added by the end of the year.

For more Google I/O 2017 content, follow our dedicated page. There is plenty to look at!