Today, Google announced that the Google Assistant will be made available in Singlish or Singaporean English. With the helpful assistant, you can now speak to it in your local English slang Singlish and get answers from it. You can ask it to do translations, weather, nearest banks and it is able to comprehend and answer your queries.
The Google Assistant (which can be activated by long pressing the home button or speaking Ok Google) will recognise Singlish starting 15 November when the Pixel 2 XL phone goes on sale. It’ll also come to Android phones 6.0+ (Marshmallow and above) over the next couple of weeks and to iPhone devices soon as well.
The Google Assistant lets you have a conversation with Google to help you get things done in your world. There are various ways to activate it. Other than saying “Ok Google”, you can also squeeze the side of the Pixel 2 XL to activate the assistant. The third method is by holding the Home button and your personal Google Assistant will be ready to help you throughout your day.
The Google assistant will get smarter over time when it learns more from the way you speak and is able to answer more questions. It’ll get better over time–with your permission, it can learn your preferences, your likes and your dislikes – all done in a private, secure way that puts you in control.
Stephanie Davis, Country Director, Google Singapore said, “Singaporeans are avid smartphone users who are always on the go. With this latest update to the Google Assistant, we hope to help more Singaporeans get things done quickly on their phones – take a selfie, get directions from Google Maps, find your photos, get help with translation and more. With the Google Pixel 2 XL now available in Singapore, we hope to offer the best Google experience bringing our hardware, software and AI capabilities to more people here.”
With today’s update, the Google Assistant is now available in Singapore, the US, UK, Canada (English and French), Australia, Germany, France, Japan, Brazil, India (English, Hindi), Mexico, Spain, Korea, and Indonesia.
The Google Pixel 2 XL will be launched exclusively with Singtel. Pricing information will be available closer to launch date.