Google Assistant starts to integrate with third-party apps. In recent years, voice assistants seem to have found their place in the world of technology. They offer information while we are busy or when we do not have a screen to access. They obey commands to perform repetitive or simple tasks. However, it always depends on the integration that the rest of the apps and services have with the assistant. Google is looking to change this in some way, Assistant has started to explore and automate tasks of third party Android apps.
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Until now, Google Assistant was limited to opening a third-party application if it was not compatible with the Assistant itself. But they have updated the service in order to enable searches for specific details within third-party applications. In some of them, you can even perform specific tasks within the app, all by voice command.
The integration of Google Assistant with third-party apps
As explained by Google, Assistant on Android smartphones already integrates with some third-party apps automatically. They say they have started with the 30 most popular ones from Google Play Store, such as Twitter, Discord, Spotify, Nike, Snapchat or Etsy among others. One of the main features is that it indexes the internal content of these apps. For example, you can search for some type of product within Etsy or open a person’s profile in Snapchat.
On the other hand, they have enabled voice commands for the most frequent tasks in these apps. Some examples they mention are controlling the playback of music or video by voice, ordering food from home, posting content on social networks, or sending a message to someone. Finally, it is possible to create shortcuts with custom phrases for the most common tasks.
Google Assistant starts to integrate with third-party apps, for now all these changes have started to be applied in Google Assistant for Android in English. They promise that in the future it will reach other languages as well. Be that as it may, it is interesting how the assistant manages to explore and get to know the apps by itself, without the need for the developer to make big and apparent changes to give such compatibility.
