— Ch. 1 · The 2016 Debut And Pixel Exclusivity —
Google Assistant.
~4 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
Google Assistant arrived on the 18th of May 2016, during a developer conference where CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled the technology alongside the Google Nest smart speaker and the Allo messaging app. The initial rollout restricted access to Google Pixel smartphones for several months after its launch. This exclusivity period ended in February 2017 when Google began enabling the assistant on Android devices running version 6.0.1 or 7.0 in select English-speaking markets. Tablets did not receive the feature during this specific expansion phase. By October 2017, the first laptop to include Google Assistant was the Google Pixelbook. The service later expanded to Wear OS 2.0 and eventually reached iOS as a standalone application in May 2017.
Smart Displays And Hardware Partnerships
January 2018 marked the Consumer Electronics Show where the first Assistant-powered smart displays were announced by companies like Lenovo, Sony, JBL, and LG. These new devices combined voice interaction with video screens to show YouTube videos, GMaps directions, and smart camera footage. Google itself released the Google Nest Hub in October 2018 followed by the Google Nest Hub Max which utilized a different system platform. By 2020, the service had already been deployed on more than 1 billion devices globally. Third-party hardware partners integrated the software into cars from Audi and Volvo as well as home appliances from General Electric and D-Link.