Remember when we said that you should keep an eye on ‘Action on Google’? Today we are probably going to say the same thing, only with more reasons to back. Google introduced the Assistant to ease the life of a user. Coming in with Pixel, the Assistant powers the Google Home device as well. Now the search giant is looking to take the Assistant to more places including your TV, Android Wear watches and in-car entertainment systems.

Google’s Home device already had an edge over Alexa with its massive search data and availability through Pixel devices and Allo messenger. Not that Alexa is not impressive but Google had that head start. By making it accessible in new places, Assistant will be able to reach new users and on more occasions and in turn, this will create opportunity for the brands providing the actions to interact more with users.

The Actions on Google can have direct action to certain commands or have a conversational form depending on what it is. Companies working on travel assistant services in various forms might not like it much but travel providers of different scale can actually gain a lot out of it. The Assistant opens up the opportunity to reach a much larger tech savvy set of audience.

Assistant will be rolling on devices like Nvidia Shield, Xiaomi Mi Box and an array of devices that make use of Google Assistant SDK. It is already being claimed that apps will go away making way for chat and voice and the Assistant is a step in the same direction. Some major travel brands like Uber, Open Table and Lonely Planet are already there with more exploring the possibilities. If you want to get started with Actions on Google, click here.

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There is a lot to talk about announcements from Google’s hardware event yesterday. A new iPhone rival in the form of Google Pixel is what the whole world is talking about and the Assistant is getting all the limelight. VR was also a major discussion point with another affordable (and comfortable) headset being announced. However, there is one major thing that caught our attention, ‘Actions on Google’.

Earlier this year when the techies at Google showcased their messaging app Allo during I/O, they also announced the Assistant that is breaking the internet right now. Simplifying things for the consumer is the ‘in thing’ and everyone is looking at the future at the intersection of hardware and software. Amazon is already making some good progress there and now along with the Assistant, Google has also announced a piece of hardware for homes.

With the announcement of the Assistant, it was easy to guess that Google will eventually open up to other developers offering actions and services for the platform. Guess what? They have now.

They have a new open developer platform called Actions on Google which would allow third parties to integrate their software and hardware into the Assistant. While the Assistant might be a bad news for all those building travel assistant platforms and similar products, it could be a very good news for service providers.

Interested in building for the Assistant? Check out https://t.co/i3QCiE7yzA for news and updates about Actions on Google.

— Google Developers (@googledevs) October 4, 2016

The actions can include Direct Actions that require single command or straightforward requests. “What is new on TravHQ today” could be something, no? The other type of actions are Conversation Actions which require back and forth interaction to fulfil. “Call me an Uber to Airport” “UberX or UberBLACK” could be a Conversation Action. They haven’t actually shared much detail right now but Actions on Google will launch in December.

When Google is betting big on something, there is a very good possibility that they will make it big and drive adoption. Google Assistant is one of those things. It is already in the new messaging app Allo where, now with the third party integrations, it would not only allow you to search for a restaurant in the middle of a conversation but also let you book a table. Actions on Google will allow you to reach a new (and large) set of tech savvy (or curious) audience.

Reach isn’t the only upside for partners (or providers?) here. We know nobody wants to install beyond after Facebook, WhatsApp and Chrome which is exactly why bots have been emerging as the hot new thing. Assistant would further give the apps an elbow and spoil users with the convenience. And if this is where the world is going, you would probably want to be there with your brand. Uber, Foursquare, Lonely Planet and Open Table are some of the names from travel space that are already on-board. Some other big names might not really like the idea, but there is no denying that it seems to have potential.

You can sign up for developments on Actions on Google at developers.google.com/actions.

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TripAdvisor Instant, the feature when it was being rolled out appeared very promising, and it indeed is. The fight is to simplify the customer experience and just like any other travel brand, metasearch players are also trying to make the experience seamless. Sending the customer to another website makes the experience inconsistent and this poses a challenge which is even more prominent on mobile. TripAdvisor, with its booking partners, offered a book button without the customer having to leave TripAdvisor. While this is something the customers would appreciate, some of the biggest players in hotel bookings decided to stay away. The reason? Lack of loyalty and returning customers. The Google assistant showcased recently at I/O 2016 appears to be walking down a similar route.

The Google Assistant looks really powerful and will be able to answer questions and carry out certain tasks. Accessible via text or voice queries, it certainly is easy to access and judging by how good Google Now already is, we have no doubts about its capabilities either.

However, of all these ‘tasks’ it can carry out, jobs like booking events, reserving restaurant tables, ordering food and many other require third party tools. If we are speaking in Indian context, it might use something like BookMyShow for movie tickets or DineOut to book a restaurant table and as a user, I am completely okay with any of these services as long as the job is done. However unlike Telegram or Facebook, you won’t interact with the bot of that particular brand. Instead, you will always be interacting with Google Assistant.

The reason Google says it won’t give other brands direct access is because the experience won’t be as smooth and we agree. However with this, while the brands will get sales, they won’t be highlighted as much as they would want to and this means the bigger brands won’t be interested unless there is a huge volume of transactions coming through this channel which seems unlikely in the early days. Even then, they might prefer other platforms where they can open up a more direct channel of communicating with the customers. Brands want stickiness and might see bots as an addition way of putting their name in the front while having an additional channel for sales or support. The fact that the customer might not even notice who booked that restaurant table for them might be enough to keep them away from the Google assistant.

The opinions that we are drawing at this point are based on what Google has showcased and shared yet and things could be much different by the time the new Google Assistant reaches the masses. Google actively works with developers for its one product or the other so they must have got something in pipeline that we aren’t aware of at this point of time. During the keynote at Google I/O 2016, Sundar Pichai mentioned that they are working on how third party developers can interact with the assistant and more details will follow in the coming months. We are keeping a close watch on what direction this new development takes.

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