Google Assistant to Be Made Available for Android 6.0 Marshmallow Devices

Google, after weeks of speculation, has finally confirmed that its Google Assistant voice-based virtual assistant will be arriving on all devices running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or above.

Google Assistant, the company's voice-based virtual assistant, that made its debut on the Google Allo app, and then was available on the company's Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, marketed as the biggest highlight of the new hardware. Apart from Pixel devices, the Google Assistant has now made its way to LG's new G6 flagship as well.

10 Things the Google Assistant Can Do

The company revealed that the rollout will start this week to devices that are running Android Marshmallow or above. Google Assistant will be available for all English users in the US followed by Australia, Canada, and the UK.

"The Google Assistant will automatically come to eligible Android phones running Nougat and Marshmallow with Google Play Services. You'll also see the Google Assistant on some newly announced partner devices, including the LG G6," said Gummi Hafsteinsson, Product Lead, Google Assistant.

The  Google Assistant will be coming to Germany as well for German speaking users. The new Google Assistant feature on Marshmallow devices will replace Google Search, and can be launched by long-pressing the home button or can be activated via voice by saying "Ok Google" voice command.

The Google Assistant availability was first teased earlier this month with an alpha release of version 6.13 of the Google Search app.

Google Assistant was one of the biggest things to come out of 2016 from Google in the field of artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, the feature so far wasn't available to any third-party devices or developers, and was limited to Allo app, Pixel and Pixel XL devices, the Google Home speaker, and Android TV devices. Unofficially though, anyone can avail the service through Open GApps builds, the popular Google Apps package provider.