Over 500 Million People Use Google Assistant Every Month

Google confirmed that its digital assistant is used by more than 500 million people every month. What is your viewpoint, is it a win or a big miss for Google?

When considered having the voice-controlled technology on more than half a billion devices far surpasses main rival Amazon.com Inc. Last year Amazon confirmed that it sold more than 100 million gadgets with its Alexa digital assistant. Though, Google's Android OS runs on approximately 2.5 billion devices. So with this, we understand that either the Google Assistant isn't available with some of these products, or many people are not using the service.

Whichever way we look at it, the numbers indicate the battle between Google, Amazon, Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. to get their voice-controlled digital assistants to as many people as possible.

For these tech giants, the latest frontier is the voice for pulling customers into their ecosystems. Then collect data on them and then selling services or advertising based on that information. With the decline in smartphone growth, the voice assistants become more critical.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google and rivals are under pressure for privacy when it comes to this new technology. Consumers were not aware that the tech giants frequently use human contractors to transcribe audio clips from people's requests as a way to improve the quality of the AI algorithms. Workers who were listening detailed about hearing all kinds of personal information, which also includes home addresses and intimate conversations.

Google announced that it was adding more privacy and security features for the Assistant. Users have to choose to allow Google keep any voice recordings made by the device, and now they can directly ask it to delete something that might unintentionally have been picked up by saying "Hey Google, that wasn't meant for you," or "Hey Google, delete everything I said to you today."