9 Building for Google Assistant
This chapter covers
- Examining Google Assistant and how it differs from other platforms
- Learning the difference between the Actions SDK and Dialogflow
- Building an interaction model in Dialogflow
- Creating a Dialogflow-powered action
Already you’ve seen the basics of a good VUI and how to build an Alexa skill. Alexa, though, is not the only major voice-first platform. Nearly as prominent is Google, with Google Assistant coming on the Google Home and third-party devices. Although it was released after Alexa, Google has taken hold in the market, and may have even caught up to Amazon in the number of devices sold by the time you read this. As I write this, in 2019, Google has been consistently growing faster than Amazon in putting smart speakers in homes.
Developers have been building for the Assistant platform from the beginning, creating what Google calls actions, which extend the platform with custom interactions. Google is further trying to expand Assistant by playing to the search engine’s strengths, creating tools for website creators and Android developers so they can create actions based on what they’ve already built. Developers can also create new actions that are untied to anything but Assistant.