MOUNTAIN VIEW (UNITED STATES) - Google on Tuesday unveiled an artificial intelligence tool capable of handling routine tasks -- such as making restaurant bookings -- as a way to help people disconnect from their smartphone screens. Pichai played a recording of the Google Assistant independently calling a hair salon and a restaurant to make bookings -- interacting with staff who evidently didn't realise they were dealing with artificial intelligence software, rather than a real customer. "Our vision for our assistant is to help you get things done," Pichai told the conference in Google's home town of Mountain View, California. Much of the focus was on Google Assistant, the artificial intelligence application which is competing against Amazon's Alexa and others. "Thanks to our progress in language understanding, you'll soon be able to have a natural back-and-forth conversation with the Google Assistant without repeating 'Hey Google' for each follow-up request," Pichai said.

Source: Bangkok Post May 08, 2018 21:45 UTC