This Month in Google Assistant: July Recap

Aygul Zagidullina

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Google Assistant

3 min readJul 31, 2018

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Google Assistant is available in Russia with support for Russian

Google Assistant added support for the Russian language as it went live for users in Russia. Assistant in Russian supports features such as Actions on Google, and lots of Russian brands (e.g. ivi) have revealed support for Assistant. Learn more on Google Russia blog: https://russia.googleblog.com/2018/07/google.html.

Consumer availability of rich responses optimized for smart displays

Google has announced consumer availability of rich responses optimized for smart displays. With rich responses, developers can use basic cards, lists, tables, carousels and suggestion chips, and custom themes, with more visual components coming soon. Learn more on Google Developers blog: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/07/designing-for-google-assistant-on-smart_26.html and Google Developers website: https://developers.google.com/actions/assistant/responses#rich-responses.

Smart displays from Lenovo go on sale in the US

The first smart displays with the Google Assistant from Lenovo in two display sizes — 8" HD and 10" Full-HD — are now on sale in major US retail (Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon, Costco, SamsClub, Lenovo and other stores). Learn more on Google blog: https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/first-smart-displays-google-assistant-are-now-available-stores/.

Limited time offer. Costco is already selling the brand-new 10" Full-HD Lenovo Smart Display for $50 off: https://www.costco.com/Lenovo-10%22-Smart-Display-with-Google-Assistant-Built-In.product.100430288.html.

Google Assistant is available in the Netherlands with support for Dutch

Google Assistant added support for the Dutch language as it went live for users in the Netherlands. Assistant in Dutch supports features such as Actions on Google, and lots of Dutch brands (e.g. Centraal Beheer, Eneco, Essent, ING, Jumbo, KLM, KRO-NCRV, MediaMarket, NOS, NPO, Qmusic, Rabobank, Rituals, Transavia and Unilever) have revealed support for Assistant. Learn more on Google Netherlands blog: https://nederland.googleblog.com/2018/07/google-introduceert-de-google-assistent.html.

Speakable — new schema.org structured data specification (beta)

Google released a new schema.org structured data specification called Speakable to help news publishers mark up sections of a news article that are most relevant to be read aloud by the Google Assistant. Learn more on Google Webmaster blog: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/07/hey-google-whats-latest-news.html and Google Developers website: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/speakable.

Automatic Spelling Correction in Dialogflow

With Dialogflow’s Automatic Spelling Correction, Actions built with Dialogflow can automatically correct spelling mistakes, which significantly improves intent and entity matching. Automatic Spelling Correction uses similar technology to what’s used in Google Search and other Google products. Learn more on Google Developers blog: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/07/new-dialogflow-features-at-cloud-next.html and Google Developers website: https://dialogflow.com/docs/agents#ml_settings_machine_learning.

New Dialogflow features to improve customer support for your Actions (beta)

Dialogflow introduced several new beta features including Phone Gateway, Knowledge Connectors, and Automatic Spelling Correction to expand conversational capabilities for customer support and contact centers. Learn more on Google Developers blog: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/07/new-dialogflow-features-at-cloud-next.html and Google Cloud blog: https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2018/07/transforming-the-contact-center-with-ai.

Sample Actions for Google Assistant

Google launched new sample Actions integrated with Dialogflow that show developers how to use Actions on Google features such as rich responses, SSML, persistence, built-in intents and media playback. Learn more on the Leon Nicholls’ Medium blog: https://medium.com/@leonnicholls/sample-actions-for-the-google-assistant-9ea0d5f35626.

New visual overview of the day in Google Assistant

Google rolled out a new visual overview of your day when you open the Google Assistant app on your phone, with proactive suggestions and personalized information based on the time of day, location, and your recent interactions with the Assistant. Learn more on Google blog: https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/stay-top-your-day-proactive-help-your-assistant/.