Google is making its Assistant available to people in India via a phone call, so they don’t need a smart speaker or even a smartphone to access the service. The company announced at its Google for India annual event it has partnered with mobile carrier Vodafone-Idea to enable this feature. And as with Assistant on connected devices, it works with multiple languages.
The company said it’s been testing the line in two cities: Lucknow in Kanpur. If you’re a Vodafone-India user in India, you can call 000-800-9191-000 to chat with Assistant in English or Hindi.
Google said you can check scores, get traffic updates, and locate stores around you with this line. The line will be toll-free and you would be able to ask contextual queries such as local weather, but you won’t get answers to queries that are personalized to your account. Google said it won’t collect any data that can help identify an individual.
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This line is meant to provide Google Assitant to people who have low-connectivity in parts of the country.
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