The Silicon Review ^Asia

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of many upcoming technologies. Whether it is search engines, self-driven cars, office assistants or enterprise software, AI is rapidly advancing on all frontiers of technological development. Google Assistant, Google’s very own virtual assistant has already made its mark in the market, helping users to get things done with nothing more than natural voice. Over the years, Google has made the assistant available in several languages including French, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, German, Dutch, Norwegian, and Chinese and so on. The efforts to roll out additional languages is part of Google’s broader strategy for bolstering its global user base by making its services and features available to diverse ethnic groups and numerous non-English speaking people.

Earlier this year, Google had announced its plans to unveil additional languages and bring the total language count to 30. What’s exciting is that 7 of the 30 new ones are to Indian languages. Google Assistant already supports Hindi. The new rollout would include Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi. The decision to have a total of 8 Indian languages makes sense, in light of the fact that India has dozens of languages and supporting the major ones would enhance inclusiveness and help natives embrace technology.

The date for the release of the languages, however, has not been specified.