Why Google is launching the Home speakers in India

My mother still thinks Google is answering the questions she types into her phone.

She often asks me how Google knows all of these things. And I have struggled to explain to her that Google isn't the Internet. For many, or even most Indians, the Internet is Google and Google is the Internet.

But, like my mother, they still type in queries. They don’t speak to their phones and they see no merit in smart home technologies. Why then is a company of Google's stature introducing a smart home product, that's just about started being accepted in the US, to India?

The answer is simple. To learn more about the country. For a firm that relies heavily upon machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) for its future, Google needs India to interact with its products as much as possible.

Much like it did with the Internet, Google needs to learn India. There's a difference between learning "about India" and "learning India". It is that difference that will make or break future AI-driven businesses in the country, including Google.

The country presents a wide range of people, who speak different languages and dialects. Not only that, we have different accents, which even Google's AI assistants have struggled to deal with. And that's where the Google Home comes in.

Google launched its smart speakers in India today, a market where smart home products are far-fetched and aspirational. "There's many a moment where you can train and educate consumers on what the (Google) Assistant is," said Rishi Chandra, VP of home products at Google.

But the Assistant is already on almost every smartphone in India. Why does Google need another product? Because smartphones are clunky. You have to pull them out of your pocket, press buttons, type in passwords/pass codes and then get to the Assistant. That's not intuitive.

"The Assistant is on tens and millions of phones in India. It's a good opportunity for consumers to understand what the Assistant can do. Which is the best training, right? The Assistant is a new interface to Google and you can understand what it can do."

Phones were the first step. Chandra hopes that once people understand and use the Assistant, they will want it in their home. "That makes it accessible to everyone in my home, like my parents, kids and my spouse."

A voice-enabled future

The future of consumer technology is in voice. That's easier to do overseas, where English prevails as the universal language. In India, you not only have different languages, you also need to deal with different dialects and accents. Google has made some progress in adding languages to the Assistant. In fact, Hindi voice support was announced for the Assistant recently and Google plans to add it to the Home by the end of the year.

Yet, it's hard to deny the fact that the Assistant is not quite understanding India and Indians. It misunderstands commands often, and though many use it on their phones, it's often not through voice feedback. The Home could effectively solve that.

That's probably why Google is selling it in 750 retail stores, tying up with big names in retail, like Croma, Reliance Digital, Vijay Sales, Sangeetha, Poorvika and more. The company wants to show this device to people, have them speak to it and then buy it.

Simply put, the more Home speakers Google sells in India, better its training set for the ML and AI algorithms behind the Assistant becomes. It might miss commands often right now, but the more it fails, the better it gets. That's just how AI works.

Ambient computing

"Every interaction we have with Google, we can use to improve our algorithms," Chandra said. The Home gives Google access to age diversity. Chandra explained how kids don't use the Assistant very often, whereas that's the only way to engage with the Home.

By its very nature, the Google Home allows more voice engagement. That, in turn, compliments all the data Google can get from India and how it speaks, improving its own service in the long run.

Silicon Valley has long wanted to move towards ambient computing, where devices just exist around you with keyboards and mice out of the way. It's Iron Man's Jarvis in real life, but that can't happen unless the second biggest market in the world, India, is ready for it.

Google is already in our pockets, on every smartphone, but ambient computing looks to eliminate even the phone. How do you do that? You kickstart the smart home market in the country. Chandra said that the Amazon Echo devices and Google Homes of the world did that for the US market and he expects the same to happen in India now.