What you need to know
- Google Assistant can now help you book movie tickets through Chrome.
- It utilizes Duplex technology to cut out all the tedious tapping of buttons and filling out of info.
- It works with many popular movie booking sites such as AMC, Fandango, Regal, and MovieTickets.com.
Back in May at I/O 2019, Google showed off how soon you'd be able to complete tasks and order things online using Assistant in Chrome. In order to accomplish this, Google would make use of its Duplex technology.
You may remember Duplex from Google's mind-blowing demo from Google I/O 2018, where it booked a hairdresser over a phone call while mimicking human speech. It sounded so natural that it's not likely the person on the other end of the phone call even knew it was talking to a computer.
Now, Google is looking to leverage this technology to help you with even more tasks, and it's making the leap to Chrome with Duplex on the web via Assistant.
To get things started, it will first be utilized to help you book movie tickets online. In this GIF example, we get a look at how the process works while booking tickets for the new Downton Abbey movie.
After picking a showtime, you are presented with a dialog box with buttons to buy tickets with the Assistant logo. Tapping on the button takes you through the process of booking your tickets with an Assistant overlay at the bottom requiring minimal input as it does all the mundane steps for you.
The only time you'll need to interact with the site itself is when you choose your seats. Otherwise, Assistant takes care of the rest and uses the info Google knows about you to fill out all the fields. Then, at the end, you'll also pay by using Assistant.
The process works with some of the most popular movie booking sites on the web, including AMC, Fandango, Regal, and MovieTickets.com. Speaking with *Android Police* a Google spokesperson commented:
As previewed at Google I/O, we started experimenting with bringing the Google Assistant in Chrome to help users book movie tickets. We'll use this opportunity to get feedback from users and improve the feature.
Assistant is all about making our lives more convenient, and using it to handle the tedious tasks of booking appointments is a fantastic use of the technology. Hopefully, we'll see it expand to more areas in the future.
I'm ecstatic to live in a Google Duplex world
