Google Offers Google Assistant to Android Nougat and Marshmallow Powered Smartphones

The great thing about Google Assistant is that it allows users to talk to their Pixel and Pixel XL phones in a conversational or natural way. Instead, version 6.13 or higher of the Google app will bring Assistant functionality. German will be next for Germany, but other languages won’t come till later this year. However, the firm has now confirmed plans to roll it out to more handsets running Google 6.x Marshmallow and 7.x Nougat. But the AI-powered Assistant is also able to respond to commands based on what’s in your Google accounts – asking for details from your inbox or photo collection, for example.

Till today, Google’s Assistant was only available on the Company’s own Pixel phones. The system was similar to Google Now in that it could check the weather, work alongside smart home devices, offer information and directions, and answer questions from search results and offer info about a user’s schedule.

Google Assistant is a big step-up from its Google Now search function. The announcement was made in the midst of the Mobile World Congress, hence, we’ll definitely see more manufacturers tout the feature in their respective keynotes.

Google Assistant was first limited to just products put out by Google, with this new digital assistant only being out since the fall of 2016.

But wasn’t Assistant already going to be coming to other Android devices soon? Google will showcase the Assistant running on phones from Huawei, HTC, LG, Samsung, and Sony later this week at MWC 2017.

The service will first be available in English for the U.S., with Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom following closely behind. Recently, Google announced that its virtual assistant would soon be available to non-Pixel smartphones.

Assistant, like many features like it, has until now been tightly kept exclusive to Pixel phones. Google claims that the more you use Assistant, the better it will know you and more useful it will be. It came to Android Wear 2.0-via new smartwatches-just a few weeks ago and, as we previewed in January, the Assistant is also coming to TVs and cars.