The second generation of Google Assistant

Google has announced the second-generation version of its Google Assistant software, which promises new features, a redesigned design and a significant acceleration in speed.

This latest upgrade means that the new assistant can launch and return query responses much faster than before. The service will arrive first on Pixel phones.

Google announced the announcement on stage at its Pixel 4 event in New York City on Tuesday 15 October.

We already knew a lot about the new wizard, thanks to Google's initial revelation at the I / S developer conference in May, but we also saw it in action on Pixel 4 before its release, thanks to a flood of leaks. This included, among other things, new marketing videos for assistants.

In May, Google claimed that the new wizard would be up to 10 times faster than before, and the marketing videos showed a much faster version of the software, retrieving instructions and returning responses to queries. (It's not clear whether this 10x estimate is for all the Wizard's features or just some of the lighter features).

In a live demonstration, we also saw the speed of the new wizard, and it looks impressive. It is able to save tracking requests and get results in a second or two. The presenter also used Wizard without the standard wake-up word "OK Google", but Google hasn't yet considered whether this is a new feature or just a shortcut used for the purposes of the demo.

The second generation of Google Assistant