Developers can start building third-party actions for Google Assistant in December
One of the major knocks on Google Assistant and Google Home right now is that they don’t do enough. It’s a nice start to a connected home future, but right now the duo seems like little more than voice-activated music and Google searches.
But that could change as early as December. Google has revealed that they will be opening up their Actions on Google API to developers at that time.
This API would allow developers to build third-party support for their apps in the Google Assistant, such as setting your Philips Hue lights, ordering products like rides from Uber, sending messages to your friends on whichever platform your fancy, and more. Developers can also take advantage of Conversation Actions which will help them build that natural conversation-style back-and-forth dialog between a user and the Google Assistant.
And if all that isn’t enough, Google will even allow you to use Google Assistant on, well, any device you’re able to load it onto.
This is all to combat Amazon’s Alexa which has had a very big head start to now. Amazon launches new third-party services and features every month thanks to their platform’s wealth of third-party APIs, and you don’t have to buy an Amazon device if you want the power of Alexa.
It’s a point Google had to reach if they really wanted to compete in this space, and we’re happy it won’t take much longer for them to truly get the ball rolling. Developers who are interested in building for the Google Assistant can head here and sign up to be notified when more news is made available. In the meantime, if you just want to have a bit of fun, check out our list of 20 fun things you should try with Google Home and the Google Assistant.