At the Google I/O 2018 event fascinating Duplex technology was presented, which generated genuine excitement among the audience. Attendees were shown how the voice assistant autonomously schedules appointments or makes restaurant reservations, inserting interjections into its speech for added realism, responding to human words with phrases like "uh-huh" or "yeah." In doing this, Google Duplex the conversation partner that the dialogue is taking place with a robot and that the conversation is being recorded.
Limited testing in several cities across the USA, after which the tech giant rolled out Duplex to a multitude of Android and iOS devices. Google assures that the feedback has been very positive from both American users and the local businesses participating in the program.
During I/O 2019, the company announced an expansion of Duplex to websites so that the Assistant could help carry out tasks online. Often, when making a reservation or ordering online, a person has to navigate through several pages, zooming in and out to fill out all forms. With the Assistant based on Duplex, these tasks will be completed much faster, as the system will be able to automatically fill out complex forms and navigate through the site.
For example, one could simply ask the Assistant: "Book a car with National for my next trip," and the assistant will figure out all the remaining details. The AI will navigate the site and input user data: trip information saved in Gmail, payment details from Chrome, and so on. Duplex for websites will be released later this year in English in the USA and the UK on Android phones and will support car rentals and movie ticket bookings.
