Google has today announced in an official blog post that over half a billion people in more than 90 countries are now using the Google Assistant to get things done each month across their smart speakers, smart displays, phones, TVs, cars, and more.
The company has also introduced some new Google Assistant features at the CES 2020 event in Las Vegas, including a new “suggestion button” that will pop up as a notification on Android devices when you are setting up a new smart device. You’ll then be able to easily complete set-up in just a few taps without needing to re-enter your account credentials.
Google says that with a new feature called ‘Scheduled Actions; coming out later this year, users will be able to ask the Assistant to turn on/off or start/stop a compatible smart device at the time of their choosing:
At CES, we also announced we’re adding two new voice actions for people to easily control their privacy, such as “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you,” which lets you tell the Assistant to forget what it heard if an unintended activation occurs. You can also ask “Hey Google, are you saving my audio data?” to learn about your privacy controls and go directly into the settings screen to change your preferences.
The company also previewed its advancing speech technology at the CES that enables natural reading of long-form content. You can learn more about it here.
