A couple of weeks ago we told you that the Interpreter Mode was already spotted on the Google Assistant support page but there wasn’t an official announcement yet. Now Google has officially talked about rolling out the new feature for Google Home and Smart Display devices, letting your digital assistant translate your conversations in real time. They also talked about how some hotels in the US were part of the test run making it easier for concierge and front desk personnel to talk to guests that do not speak the same language.
Just in case you missed the piece of news from earlier this year, Google announced that they will be adding an interpreter mode for Google Assistant-enabled devices so that you can have real-time translation without having to copy paste or read from other apps like Google Translate. Weeks later, they are now rolling out the mode on your Google Home devices and Smart Displays.
Currently, there are only 26 supported languages but they will probably expand this eventually. Also, the support page still says that you must first use English, French, German, Italian, Japanese or Spanish to start using the feature but they will probably update that as well. To start using it, you can just say something like “Hey Google, be my Thai interpreter” or “Hey Google, help me speak Spanish” and it will do its thing.
Google shared how they tested it out in hotels like Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Dream Downtown in New York City, and Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport. These hotels get a lot of foreign visitors and so having a real-time translator with Google Assistant helped make it more convenient for both the staff and the customer. They didn’t need to call on an interpreter or to second-guess what the customer needs.
We will probably see more businesses adapt the Interpreter Mode, especially those that will have to deal with customers that speak a different language. Google seems to be pushing this for businesses more than for regular consumers but we can also expect it to have more user-friendly updates in the future.
SOURCE: Google
