[light music]
[cheers and applause]
Sissie: Thanks, Sundar.
It's amazing how quickly voice is becoming such a common way
to access computing.
Every month, over 700 million people around the world
get everyday tasks done with their Assistant.
They can just say, "Hey, Google," to get help on the go,
in their homes, and even in the car.
But these interactions are still not as natural as they could be.
First, you should be able to easily initiate conversations
with your Assistant.
So today we're introducing two new options
so you don't have to say, "Hey, Google," every time.
[cheers and applause]
First is a new feature for Nest Hub Max called Look and Talk,
which is beginning to roll out today.
You can simply look directly at your device
and ask for what you need,
like when you make eye contact to start a conversation
with another person.
Once you opt in, Look and Talk is designed to activate
when both Face Match and Voice Match recognize it's you.
And video from these interactions is processed entirely on-device,
so it isn't shared with Google or anyone else.
[chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
Let me turn the camera back on and show you how it works.
Assistant: The mic and camera are back on.
Sissie: Walking into the kitchen to start a weekend with my family,
I can simply look over and ask...
Show me some beaches in Santa Cruz.
Assistant: I found a few beaches near Santa Cruz.
Sissie: [chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
Pretty cool, right?
How long does it take to get to that first one?
Assistant: By car, the trip to Natural Bridges State Beach
is 51 minutes.
[cheers and applause]
Sissie: That's so much easier than saying the hot word over and over.
[laughs]
The ability to distinguish intentional eye contact from a passing glance
requires six machine-learning models that are processing over 100 signals--
like proximity, head orientation, and gaze direction--
to evaluate the user's intent all in real time.
We've also tested and refined Look and Talk
to work across a range of different skin tones
using some of the same principles of inclusion
behind Real Tone on Pixel 6 camera and Monk Scale.
[chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
We're also excited to expand Quick phrases on Nest Hub Max.
Quick phrases already lets you skip the hot word
for things like answering calls on Pixel 6
and stopping timers on Nest devices.
And in the next few months,
you'll be able to ask your Assistant for many common requests,
like setting alarms, asking for the time,
and controlling lights from your Nest Hub Max
all without saying the hot word.
[applause]
All right, check this out.
Turn off the living room light.
[Next Hub Max chimes]
[cheers and applause]
That was so easy.
I just said what I wanted.
Designed with privacy in mind,
you choose which Quick phrases are enabled for your Nest Hub Max.
So those are two ways that it's getting easier
to start talking to the Assistant.
We're also improving how the Assistant understands you
by being more responsive as you just speak naturally.
If you listen closely, people's conversations
are full of "ums," pauses, and corrections,
but that doesn't get in the way of understanding each other.
And that's because people are active listeners
and can react to conversational cues in under 200 milliseconds.
Humans handle this so naturally,
but doing this for open-ended conversations
across the Assistant is a really hard problem.
Moving our speech models to run on the device made things faster,
but we wanted to push the envelope even more.
The breakthrough comes by creating more comprehensive neural networks
that run on the Google Tensor chip,
which was built to handle on-device machine-learning tasks super fast.
Let me show you a preview of how this will all come together.
For example, I might tap and hold on my Pixel Buds and say,
"Play the new song from...
Assistant: Mm-hmm.
Sissie: Florence and the something?
Assistant: Got it, playing "Free" from Florence + the Machine on Spotify.
[upbeat music playing]
[cheers and applause]
Sissie: You heard how I stumbled at the beginning,
but my Assistant gently encouraged me to complete my thought.
[laughter]
And then even when I messed up the artist's name,
Google Assistant correctly figured out the song I wanted.
It's amazing how these improvements
change the way it feels to talk to your Assistant.
You can stop worrying about the right way to ask for something
and just relax and talk naturally.
This is how we're pushing computing forward with natural conversation,
letting you easily initiate conversation
and making it so you can just speak naturally
all so you can be truly understood.
I'm excited to see how our voices will become a faster, hands-free way
to get things done across many types of devices.