Here's how to change the Google Assistant voice

O Google announced this Friday (5th) the option to change the voice of the Google Assistant in Brazil. From now on, in addition to the female voice already available since the feature arrived in the country, users will also be able to count on male speech. To avoid stereotypes of virtual assistants, the company decided to classify voices in colors (red or orange) instead of adopting male and female genders. According to the statement, the novelty guarantees more diversity and inclusion to users who use the virtual assistant.

“Assistant is intended to be a personalized tool, and that means allowing people to choose the voice that best suits them. That's why it's important to be able to offer a new voice to talk and help them carry out their daily tasks”, explains the Head of Marketing for Google Assistant in Latin America, Maia Mau.

The new speech has technology developed by DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company from A. Call of WaveNet, it is a neural network that generates sound waves, capable of creating more realistic speech. The end result is more natural interactions, with responses that follow rhythms and intonations more like a conversation between real people.

Those who download the Google Assistant today will even be able to receive the new voice as standard, as the two options will be randomly distributed at a rate of 50% for new users. For the other users, it is possible to change between the two whenever necessary through the wizard settings.

How to activate the new voice

You can test the new Assistant with the following activations:

• “OK Google, change the Assistant voice.”
• “OK Google, who are you?”
• “OK Google, who created your voice?”
• “OK Google, describe your personality.”

After activating any of the above commands on a smartphone or tablet, tap “Assistant Voice” to change the Google Assistant voice. The process is quite simple and fast.

To make the change in smart speakers, the step by step is a little different. In this case, the user will be guided to change the settings in the app Google Home. Just access the application, click on Profile picture, choose the option Assistant Settings and finally, Assistant voice.

If you can't change the Google Assistant voice but are curious to know the new speech, the Google made available a demo video with the novelty.

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