Siri Rival Google Assistant Rolled Out To All Android Devices With Marshmallow OS And Above

If you have an Android phone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS and above, check it, you might have a new feature available — the Google Assistant is now rolling out to all such devices.

The artificial intelligence-based voice assistant competes with Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. It is different from Google’s previous voice offerings such as Google Now since it not only lets user conduct conversations with it, but also evolves according to usage. The rollout, which will occur in the form of a Google Play Services update, was announced last week.

Gummi Hafsteinsson, Google Assistant product lead, said in the company’s official press release issued on Sunday: “Our goal is to make the Assistant available anywhere you need it. It came to Android Wear 2.0—via new smartwatches—just a few weeks ago and, as we previewed in January, the Assistant is also coming to TVs and cars. With this update, hundreds of millions of Android users will now be able to try out the Google Assistant.”

Google released a video on Thursday indicating its availability.

The Google Assistant made its debut at Google’s October 2016 hardware event. It was initially exclusive to Google’s flagship device, the Pixel. Before rolling out to other Android Nougat OS devices and Marshmallow OS devices, the feature was rolled out to Google Home, Google Allo and Android Wear. The company also showcased the feature on some devices at the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona.

To run the Assistant, a device would need minimum 1.5GB RAM and a 720p HD display apart from running Android Marshmallow and above. The feature is expected to roll out to users in the U.S., U.K. first and then on to Australia, Canada and Germany. The availability of Assistant in other languages is not expected until next year, according to Engadget.

However, users can start expecting devices launching in the near future to come out with Google Assistant out-of-the-box.