Google Assistant is now rolling out to all Android 7.0 and 6.0 phones

Now Google Assistant is the smart assistant, which is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. It can do a host of activities for users; they can ask the Google Assistant to confirm calendar bookings, suggest a restaurant close by, even play games with the Assistant.

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Google Assistant can be launched by simply long pressing on the Home button and it will be activated. It’s a lot like how Google Now is currently, but in more conversational form. Google Assistant relies on machine learning to improve its search results and responses over time, and yes Google does store the requests you make to Assistant, so do keep that in mind.

If you’re looking for the Google Assistant on your smartphones, then Go to Settings>About Phone> and Check for an update. India users are unlikely to get an update so soon and will have to wait for some time. Google Assistant will be available on all phones from Android 6.0 and above.

Google recently opened up the Assistant to third-party developers, which means users will soon be able to book an Uber or ask it download a movie or buy something on an e-commerce sight, straight by talking to it. Google’s ‘Actions on Google’ API was opened for developers last year, and will let them create create custom commands for Google Assistant. However, this is being limited to the Google Home device for now, which is not yet available in India.

Google rolling out Assistant to other Android phones was expected, even before it was officially announced. The smart Assistant race is going to heat up in 2017; Samsung will have Galaxy S8 coming with its own Bixby Assistant. Amazon’s Alexa is coming to Motorola phones this year, Moto Z will be the first phone supporting it. Apple’s iPhone comes with Siri, of course.

But Google Assistant comes with an inherent advantage: Google’s Android is the dominating OS in the world, and thus gives the search giant access to a lot more data than other players. Google Assistant relies on machine learning, which means it will get better over time as it gets more and more commands. Given it will soon be a staple on majority of the smartphones across the world, it’s not surprising the search giant has an edge in this field, at least for now.