Google Assistant is slowly expanding its reach to more devices and while Google might be quietly including it in most of its hardware, the only ones that the public knows of, is the Google Home and the Android-based smartphones. But the company has recently included another of their devices, which will get to feature the popular AI assistant – the Chromebook.
The Google Assistant website’s overview section of the software shows a list of the platforms that the AI will be available in. The current list includes Android Wear, Google Home, smartphones and Android TV. It is only when users head to Google Assistant and discover the AI’s capabilities and compatibilities, will they find that it is in fact available for Chromebooks as well. This new discovery is interesting as the official website has not yet included this piece of information.
credit: Droid Life
In order to bring up this curious reference, opening up Google Assistant and tapping on the Explore button will open of a list of menus to scroll over. Users will need to head to the “Games & Fun” option. Once that is open, tapping on the “Chat with your Assistant” option will pull up the overview page that will show that the assistant is compatible with Chromebooks as well.
The Google Chromebook icon is also visible next to the Android Wear and Android phone icons. Based on rumors, the new Google PixelBook will be the first Chromebook to feature Google Assistant out of the box. It does also open up on the various possibilities of applications and functions that could be included in Chrome OS. Buyers will have to wait until October 4 to confirm whether the Google Assistant will actually be available on the company’s new Chromebooks.
According to research dug up by Android Central, there is evidence to support that the new PixelBook will also feature a special button to activate Google Assistant, much like it is with Bixby. Going forward, Chrome OS will most likely replace Android on tablets (only the operating system, and not the APIs). This will mean that just like Cortana is accessible on Windows devices and Siri is available on iOS and MacOS, Google Assistant being available on the Chromebook only seems like the best equivalent. It will also make Chrome OS more powerful than it was before, especially in providing intuitive feedback and information to users.