The Google Assistant SDK will let you run the Assistant on anything

Today Google is launching yet another Google Assistant feature: the Google Assistant SDK. This will allow developers to run the Google Assistant on their own hardware prototypes. While the SDK is only launching in "Developer Preview" mode today, this is presumably the beginning of a push for third parties to make their own consumer Google Assistant hardware.

Google says the SDK will allow any device to provide "the full Google Assistant experience." Together with the "Actions on Google" API that launched last year, developers can create their own voice commands and responses that can control the local device. Developers are also sent everything in text form so their software can see what's going on and react to it. To start listening, the SDK supports both the "OK Google" hotword and a button.

Right now, the Google Assistant is only available on some Android form factors (phones and watches) and products directly from Google, like the Google Home. The SDK should let it run on just about anything, though. Google suggests "adding smarts to a toy robot" or just getting it up and running quickly on a Raspberry Pi.

Last year, Variety reported that Google was in talks with electronics manufacturers to build the Google Assistant into their own consumer products. Google already does something similar with Google Cast, allowing users to beam content to various TVs and speakers without Google hardware, and Amazon has a third-party Alexa program as well. According to the report, Google wouldn't let companies integrate Google Cast into a device that has Alexa, forcing electronics companies to pick "Google" or "Amazon" for their smart products. It seems this SDK is the Assistant solution for those companies, and its release is the start of a push for the Google Assistant on third-party hardware.

Google isn't giving people free rein to launch consumer Google Assistant products, though. The company's blog post ends with "If you’re interested in building a commercial product with the Google Assistant, we encourage you to reach out and contact us." That probably means there are some terms you'd need to agree to. Variety's report pegged "summer" 2017 as the release date for consumer third-party Assistant hardware, but today you can grab the SDK and get the Assistant running on anything you want.