Google debuts “next-generation” Assistant, coming to next Pixel phones

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Google on Tuesday debuted an updated version of its Google Assistant platform during the keynote of its Google I/O developers conference.

The company said it is internally calling this the “next-generation” Assistant and that it will first become available on Google’s “new Pixel phones” later this year. (Not to be confused with the budget-friendly Pixel 3a phones Google also announced on Tuesday.)

Google is touting significant performance improvements with the updated Assistant, claiming that it can process and understand voice requests “in real time” and deliver results “up to 10 times faster” than its current iteration. The company says this is primarily due to it condensing the AI models used to interpret speech down to a half a gigabyte, which is small enough for them to process directly on a smartphone instead of requiring remote servers.