Google Assistant is Further Expanding Its Reach, Now Available in Google Maps

Google Assistant is taking a big step forward at CES 2019. Google is not only partnering up with manufacturers to make more products with Google Assistant baked in, it’s also expanding Google Assistant’s reach to cover some of its own services, the first of which is Google Maps.

Previously, Google offered voice support for Google Maps, but it wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as Google Assistant. Google Assistant in Google Maps will do so much more.

Google Assistant will now let you to share your ETA with friends and family, reply to text messages, play music and podcasts, and search for places along your route. The messaging part will only work for Android with SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Hangouts, Viber, Telegram, Android Messages and more.

Assistant is also making its way onto a bunch of new TVs, speakers and receivers. Android TV devices with Google Assistant will have a big presence at CES with manufacturers including Sony, TCL, Philips and more.

DISH’s Hopper family of receivers will also have Google Assistant built-in as will the Sonos One and Sonos, Beam making it way easier to play your music and podcasts. Some of the older models of Sonos’ speakers will be updated to work with Assistant.

Google isn’t forgetting about the home either. Assistant now works with over 1,600 home automation brands and more than 10,000 devices, and that is only growing at CES.