Google Assistant API launches today, so we tested some custom voice commands

Google Home gets third-party chatbots, with Pixel and Allo support coming later.

Ron Amadeo – Dec 8, 2016 5:00 PM | 21

The Google Home. It's listening!

The Google Assistant is getting an API today with the launch of "Actions on Google," a way for developers to build "conversation actions" that can be called up on the Assistant's various interfaces.

The "Actions on Google" API was announced during the Google I/O 2016 keynote and has since existed in some form as a private early access program. Today Google is throwing the doors open to developers, who can create Google Assistant commands using the chatbot developer tools API.AI and GupShup.

The "Google Assistant" is available as a voice-command system on the Google Pixel and Google Home and as a chatbot in Google Allo, Google's new instant messaging app. While the branding "Assistant" suggests they are all the same system, we found out in our various reviews that they definitely are not. They are all slightly different implementations of the same idea, with some commands working in some interfaces and not others. Sure enough this "Actions on Google" API is only launching on one of the interfaces: Google Home. Google's blog post says it will "continue to add more platform capabilities over time, including the ability to make your integrations available across the various Assistant surfaces like Pixel phones and Google Allo."

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How it works

Users won't be able to actually "install" these new actions on their devices. Apparently the third-party commands are enabled centrally in the cloud, by Google, which are then accessible on all Assistant devices. You can see how this works with the two new developer demo commands, “talk to Number Genie”—a number guessing game—and “talk to Eliza"—an old chatbot experiment from the '60s. These new commands will magically, silently work on your Google Home starting right now. (We're still not sure how users are supposed to discover and remember these new capabilities.)

These new "conversation actions" aren't exactly seamlessly integrated into the Google Assistant. After asking for Eliza, the Google Assistant says "ok, here's Eliza" and then turns off. The Google Assistant goes away, and a new chatbot—with a different voice and different capabilities—takes over Google Home. During the time this other chatbot is active, the regular Google commands don't work—you're inside this other app until you say "exit" or until you stop talking to it and let it time out. Giving the Google Assistant multiple personalities like this and siloing the conversation seems just a little odd. It's like the little voice box becomes possessed for a few minutes.

There are two different APIs for the Google Assistant. "Direct Actions" just augments the existing Google Assistant abilities, while the "Conversation Actions" are demoed above and replace the Google Assistant with another system entirely.

This isn't the end of the Google Assistant changes. Google also is launching an "early access program" for "upcoming platform features" of Google Assistant. Google says that eventually it will enable support for purchases and booking along with "deeper Assistant integrations across verticals."