Google Expanding Duplex AI In 43 States For Restaurant Booking

Navin Bondade 1 Comment Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Deep Learning, Machine Learning

Google Duplex, the artificially intelligent assistant is all set to make your restaurant booking. According to the latest information, Google is now going to expand his Duplex project to 42 new States.

On Friday, when I was quickly get done with my work, then I and my family decide to go out for dinner. Like always I tell Google Assistant to book the restaurant, and surprisingly it switches the call to the restaurant counter and book table.

That was amazing and surprising too. After discussing this new feature with my friend I came to know that Google Duplex is now currently available for Pixar phones only.

But don’t worry, it will soon roll out to the iPhone and other Android devices in the “next few weeks,” according to a blog post from Scott Huffman, vice president of engineering for Google Assistant.

Though the internal structure of Google Duplex is highly complected, it’s interaction with users and the style of doing work is pretty easy and understandable.

When you tell Google Assistant to make a reservation on Friday at a restaurant, and shares preferred time, the AI system checks whether the time slot requested by you is available in restaurant routine or not.

If the AI finds any free slot (AI checks online booking partners) as per your request, it will book it for you.

And if that doesn’t work, Google Assistant will call a business to book an appointment. Google also offers businesses an option to opt-out of the AI-powered calls.

“Our goal in testing this new capability within the Google Assistant is to provide another great resource (especially if you have a limited online presence) to help you reach a broader set of consumers, by making it easier for them to connect to your business,” said a Google community manager in a blog post on the company’s My Business forum, which is aimed at restaurant owners.

In the background, the restaurants who want to like to dine at uses an online booking service, first need to partner with Google then the restaurant will be available for AI to book a table for you that way.

As of now, Google Duplex is only available will be available for users in New York, Atlanta, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

To help appease those concerns related privacy, when Duplex becomes a part of Google Assistant later this month it will begin each call by saying: “I’m Google’s automated booking service so I’ll record the call.”

Google Duplex is full of exciting features and the one that will help allot will be this one “Call Screening”, which is now a part of the new Pixel 3 and 3 XL smartphones announced by Google this week.

With this feature, you can easily deal with spammy and telemarketing calls, you can put all these calls for your Assistant answer for you, simply by tapping on the side icon.

The Assistant will introduce itself, ask the caller to state her name and state the purpose of the call.

Assistant will state: “Hi, the person you’re calling is using a screening service from Google, and will get a copy of this conversation. Go ahead and state your name, and why you’re calling.”

Google Duplex holds extraordinary capabilities and the technology show a great future for both Google and Tech Industry.

The Duplex first get introduce to the world last year in May at Google I/O, the company’s annual developer conference in Mountain View, California.

During the event, Google CEO Sundar Pichai played demo recordings between humans and the AI, which sounded human-like, even sprinkling in “ums” as it spoke.

Thought the project quickly get caught in controversy, the project raised privacy questions after the event, since the AI did not identify itself to unsuspecting restaurant hosts, and salon receptionists who answered the phone, and recorded the conversations.

After the event, Google clarified to say that the AI assistant would identify itself at the start of a call.

“We want to be clear about the intent of the call so businesses understand the context,” a Google blog post said after the announcement. “We’ll be experimenting with the right approach over the coming months.”