Google Assistant to speak Hindi by December 2018

Currently, it is available in eight languages — English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese (Brazil) on Android phones.

New Delhi: Google Assistant will soon be available in more than 30 languages including Hindi – a move that will help increase adoption of Google Assistant in the coming months. The tech giant plans to roll out the Hindi language support by end of this year.

Google Assistant is an official Google app which allows its users to turn their smartphones into a virtual assistant by clicking on the button on the smartphones' homepage or simply by saying 'OK Google' into the microphone.

Currently, Google Assistant supports certain keywords in Hindi. For instance, you can ask the assistant queries such as "Bihar Ki Rajdhani" and "Khichdi Ki Recipe." It even provides results in Hindi, but, the support is evidently limited.

As of now, it is available in eight languages — English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese (Brazil) on Android phones.

Google's Vice-President of Product Nick Fox said yesterday: "Similar to Android, where we've partnered closely with mobile carriers and device makers to build great products for people everywhere, we're taking an ecosystem approach to the Assistant on mobile".

By the end of the year, it will be available in more than 30 languages, reaching 95 percent of all eligible Android phones worldwide, he said.

"In the next few months, we'll bring the Assistant to Danish, Dutch, Hindi, Indonesian, Norwegian, Swedish and Thai on Android phones and iPhones, and we'll add more languages on more devices throughout the year," Fox said in a blog post.

"As we head into Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry's largest trade show (in Barcelona from February 26 to March 1), we're sharing more about how we're working closely with the mobile ecosystem to bring the Assistant to more people around the world.

"We're also making the Assistant multilingual later this year, so families or individuals that speak more than one language can speak naturally to the Assistant," he said.

Over the past year and a half, the Google Assistant has grown from being available on just one device in one language to across many types of devices, including speakers, phones, Android Auto and TVs, in many languages all around the world, the Vice President of Product said.

"With this new feature, the Assistant will be able to understand you in multiple languages fluently. If you prefer to speak German at work, but French at home, your Assistant is right there with you. Multilingual will first be available in English, French and German, with support for more languages coming over time," Fox added.

(With agency inputs)