Google Assistant gets a dial-in number in India

Google has given a new shape to its Assistant in India – users will no longer need to have an Android smartphone or smart speaker at hand to access the voice assistant.

The company announced at its "Google For India" event that it has partnered with domestic carriers Vodafone and Idea to enable this feature, even on phones that don't have Android.

Google Assistant will be available on a dial-in number and with multiple language support. The company is currently testing the technology in two Indian cities – Lucknow and Kanpur. All a user will need is a SIM from these companies. Users can call 000-800-9191-00 to chat with the voice assistant in English or Hindi.

Users will be able to do everything that they do with the regular assistant – check scores, traffic updates and locate stores for anything they want to purchase.

This is an interesting endeavour, which will help users with feature phones in the country access the Google Assistant and use its services. India might be the world's largest smartphone market, but it still has a large number of users who don't own smartphones, especially in rural areas. Out of the 800 million total users in the country, 40 percent users in the metro cities and 60 percent of users in small towns still use feature phones, since they are much more affordable than smartphones.

This is a unique proposition and also its development arc is amazing. The voice assistant started as a technology on smartphones specifically and then graduated to specialised technology for smart speakers.

It also seems inspired by government helplines such as 1800- in the US. Multi-language support will actually help users from rural areas to access information in better ways such as weather updates.

Google has unveiled the technology in India since it might be the best testing ground, with a variety of languages and a huge population.

It is not known yet if the company has plans for other countries to roll out of similar features.