The Google Inc. logoAmazon’s Alexa has had nearly two years of market ownership before Google launched its own digital assistant last month, and in that time, it has amassed over 5,000 skills, including partnerships with Domino’s Pizza and Good Housekeeping.
Google is hoping to tap a world of developers to help its own technology catch up to Alexa’s vast skill set. The company is now allowing developers outside of its company to develop skills that begin with the command “Ok Google” to activate the device. The results could be far-reaching. For example, developers for Target could develop a skill set that allows users to purchase items on the site using a few simple voice commands.
Jason Douglas, a Google exec overseeing the new platform, urges that these skills will be different from Amazon’s approach, which he claims are more like an “installation” that users have to pick and set up manually. Google’s Conversation Actions will be able to use any use case with a verbal command as long as a developer has claimed that demand for a specific action.
