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TIMOTHY JORDAN: We welcome Manuel Bronstein,
VP of Product Management here at Google,
to talk to us about the next generation Google Assistant.
Manuel, thanks for joining us.
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Thanks for having me here.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: All right, let's go really big picture
for a moment.
When you think about how the Google Assistant changes
peoples' everyday lives for the better, what does it look like?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Yeah, so when we thought about the product,
we want it to be--
our mission is to be the best way to get things done.
And when we say best, we think about seamless, fastest,
easiest way to get things done.
And if you think about a world, in some ways it's
getting more complex, right?
Every time you try to do something,
you need to think about not only what you want to do,
but the how.
And if we do our job right, and we're
investing to make it happen, you want
to be able to go from "Why do I want to get done?"
to getting it done without having to worry about the "how"
in many ways.
And our hope is that that saves you time.
And we all know how important it is for all of us
to get a little bit more time to do all the things that we
care about.
So we're very proud to be investing
in making the product the best way
to get things done, in many ways to give users time back.
EMILY FORTUNA: So the Assistant is becoming
more and more personalized.
How does that help us as well?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: So think about-- when
people think about an Assistant, they're
thinking about a product that it's
going to learn from them, that is going to understand
what they're saying.
And in order for the system to understand what you're saying,
it needs to understand your role, right.
If I say, "Call my wife."
It needs to know that my wife is [? Arianna ?] and what number
to call.
If I say, "Set an appointment for my kids."
It should understand who my kids are.
So when the Assistant starts getting to know you,
or even knows where is home, where is work,
so that I can go, hey, when I'm asking
it to give me a direction, I said like, "Drive me work."
It can understand that.
This is something that becomes more useful because you
can speak to it in a more natural way.
You don't have to think about addresses
or you don't have to think about commands.
You just speak to it the same way
you would speak to a friend, and then it
will understand what you're trying
to do and help you get it done.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: What is your favorite new feature
that Assistant announced today, and why?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: I mean it's really hard to pick a favorite.
The team worked really, really hard on many of the things
that we announced today.
I think that when you think about the promise
of the Assistant being the best way to get things done,
when it starts getting really fast,
and what we announced with the next-generation Assistant,
and one of the key things about it--
and we're saying it in a very proud way, which
is, imagine that it starts understanding you so fast, so
quickly, that speaking to your phone is faster than tapping.
Or that tapping your phone is going to feel slow.
That's when you know that you hit something
that could change your user behavior
and get people to start embedding themselves
into this product.
Because it's actually becoming very simple, but also
very fast and very efficient in helping you
get your tasks done.
EMILY FORTUNA: That's great.
So in the past couple of years, we've
seen Assistant play a much larger role
in homes and phones.
And now in driving.
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Right.
EMILY FORTUNA: So can you tell us
about the experience for drivers and what that's like?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Yeah.
You know, I mean, when you think about using your voice
and being hands-free--
actually, you know, the car is a perfect environment for it,
right?
Hopefully people are driving and they're looking at the road,
they're not looking at their phones,
they're not touching the screen.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Hands-free driving.
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Hands-free driving.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: It's hands on wheel, not on the phone.
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Correct.
So when you can think about it, actually the car
is one of the places where the system can
be even more helpful, right?
But the car is a hard environment
because if your windows are down, there's a lot of noise,
you may lose connectivity, and so forth.
But one of the things that we started
thinking about is let's start from the user,
and what is that thing that you're
trying to get done when you're in your car?
And there are mainly three things, right?
You're trying to navigate from point A
to point B. You want to get to the place hopefully
fast and safe.
You also want to make sure that when you're in the car
you can get entertained.
So you want to listen to music or podcast or radio.
And then of course you sometimes want to communicate, right.
You want to make a phone call, you
want to receive a text message, or send a text message.
And think about doing all these things with your hands
while you're driving, it's probably not
the right way to do it.
It's not safe.
But when you start doing each of these scenarios,
like driving from point A to point B,
communicating, or listening to media,
and you can control that with your voice
and it understands exactly what you're trying to get done,
then the product becomes very magical
because it's really solving a real need and a real problem
in an environment that needs that help.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Can you talk to us
about how the next generation of the Google Assistant
will change the way that people interact with it?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Yeah, so if you
think about when you start forgetting about the how,
and you start worrying about what is it that you want to do,
you start relying on the product in a very different way.
That's when the behavior change starts to happen, right?
So in the first phase of the Assistant,
it should be very responsive to you, right?
It should understand what you're saying
and then help you get it done.
As the product starts learning from you,
you can start getting more proactive, right.
So now when I get in my car it can
flash to me some missed calls or voicemails that I have,
so that if I want to return that call,
I'm reminded of that, right?
Or if it knows that in my calendar
I have an appointment at 7:00 PM and it's 6:00 PM or 6:30
and I haven't left, and it also knows information of where I'm
trying to go, and knows the traffic,
it could actually send me a notification
and let me know, hey, you're probably
going to be a late if you don't leave now.
And it's very interesting when the product
starts getting more proactive.
I think that we're going to see a switch.
I mean, I see it a lot with my kids.
In the same way that when the screens became touch screens,
and people felt that every screen is touchable,
and you see a little kid and they see an old TV
and they try to touch on the screen,
and the screen doesn't work.
I think that people are going to get used
to talking to their products.
And expecting that the product will
understand what you're saying in a natural way and help you
get it done.
And I think that we're going to see that evolution
from basically understanding your commands, what you want
to do and help you get it done, to getting very proactive,
personal, and more helpful.
So anticipating your needs and the things
that you're trying to accomplish.
EMILY FORTUNA: So you've got Assistant on your phone, home,
and now driving.
Where do you see Assistants going in the future?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: So it's a great question.
Look, I think that a personal assistant needs to be with you.
So of course a lot of the work the team has been doing
is making sure that the product is available
where you need it the most.
I don't know necessarily that it's going
to go to different places.
I mean, at the end of the day, we spend time in our homes,
we spend time at work, we spend time in our cars,
we spend time with our phones.
Maybe too much time with our phones.
But if the product can always be with you,
then it can help you fulfill some of those things.
I think that in the future, what I'm hoping it helps--
I mean, if you think about the areas
where people spend time trying to get things done,
but they wish that--
when I think about it, when you want to go to a restaurant,
the act of going to the restaurant
and having a nice meal is awesome.
Maybe calling to make a reservation is not that great.
But if this product can start doing those things for you
and remove that load from you, it becomes incredibly useful.
So I think that if you think about more of those tasks
that people are trying to get done, and help you anticipate
it, find that ticket for an event for you
that you want to go to, making that appointment for you,
and getting predictive about those things,
then the product becomes extremely magical.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Before you leave us,
are there any hints you can give us to find some Easter
eggs in the Assistant?
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: Sure.
We recently launched a new voice for the Assistant
with John Legend.
And it's pretty cool.
And if you asked-- actually, if you turn the voice to the John
Legend voice on the Assistant and you
ask it to sing a song for you or sing happy birthday,
you are going to hear John Legend singing for you.
And it's actually pretty cool.
EMILY FORTUNA: Thank you, Manuel,
so much for sharing your insight.
MANUEL BRONSTEIN: So great to be here.
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