News

Google Assistant SDK Now Available in Developer Preview

• By David Ramel
• April 28, 2017

Google yesterday announced the availability of a developer preview of the new Google Assistant SDK, providing new ways for developers to work with the all-purpose, voice-activated assistant.

The one-year-old Google Assistant is part of the emerging class of "intelligent personal assistants" that can communicate with users and perform a wide range of tasks, from answering questions to controlling your home's electronics to playing music. That class of products includes competitors such as Microsoft's Cortana and Apple's Siri.

Google Assistant has been put to use in Google phones such as the Pixel, Android Wear and Android phones sporting the Marshmallow and Nougat OS versions, with more support upcoming.

With the new SDK, third-party developers can now create their own hardware-based projects that leverage Google Assistant technology, such as for Raspberry Pi-based devices, for example, or other platforms.

"Today, we're taking another step towards building out that ecosystem by introducing the developer preview of the Google Assistant SDK," said product manager Chris Ramsdale in a blog post yesterday. "With this SDK you can now start building your own hardware prototypes that include the Google Assistant, like a self-built robot or a voice-enabled smart mirror. This allows you to interact with the Google Assistant from any platform."

For example, Ramsdale said, developers can create apps that capture voice queries, pass them on to the Google Assistant service and get back audio responses.

To help with that, the SDK comes with a Python-based open source client -- gRPC -- to manage authentication and access to the API, samples and documentation.

"This is a developer preview and we have a number of features in development including hotword support, companion app integration and more," Ramsdale said. "If you're interested in building a commercial product with the Google Assistant, we encourage you to reach out and contact us."

More developer guidance can be found in the following resources:

• Google Assistant SDK overview and more documentation.
• "Introduction to the Google Assistant SDK" video.
• Google Assistant SDK Demo: Mocktails Mixer
• Documentation for the Mocktails Mixer demo on GitHub.
• Video of the Mocktails Mixer demo.
• Google+ community for the Google Assistant SDK.
• Tagged "google-assistant-sdk" Stack Overflow questions.
• A Google Assistant SDK Updates mailing list.