From Google Pay to Google Go apps: Key takeaways from Google for India 2018

With focus on AI and machine learning, Google introduced support for more Indian languages on its apps and Assistant. It also introduced a new platform to provide online platform to offline publishers

Search engine and technology giant Google on August 28 announced new tools and features specifically designed for Indian users at the Google for India 2018 event. These tools and features include the addition of more languages support in existing apps, a new platform to bring offline publishers to online platform, redesigned Google Go apps with more functionalities, redesigned digital payment app and more language support to communicate with technology via voice. While some of these tools and features are now available to experience, rest of them would begin to roll out in coming months.

Here are the key takeaways from Google for India 2018:

Google Pay

Last year in September, Google introduced a unified payments interface (UPI) based digital payments app Tez. Now, the company has renamed the app to Google Pay, and promised to make it accessible at more platforms -- in-stores and online, while also expanding its services for merchants, and inclusion of financial institutions such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, etc. for instant loans without paperwork hassles.

Google Maps

Google Maps will soon be able to provide better public transport guidance, which will inform riders of upcoming stops and alerts on when to get off. The company also partnered with RedBus to provide more than 20,000 routes and 1,500 cities for intercity bus journey routes.

The company also announced turn-by-turn navigation functionality, along with a new home screen with convenient shortcuts new for Google Maps Go app.

Google Assistant

The Google Assistant will soon be integrated with local apps such as Where Is My Train, Airtel, and Hello English to provide added functionality such as providing train schedules, plan expiry data, mobile data balance, etc. The digital personal assistant now also supports Marathi language, along with English and Hindi, and support for around seven new languages will be added shortly.

Google Go app and search feed

The Google Go app can now read any web page in English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam and Tamil. The app also highlights each word as it reads. The company has also redesigned the Search feed, which now displays users’ favourite topics of interest as well as news, from both English and Hindi sources.

Project Navlekha

Google is working with more than 100,000 offline Indian language publishers on Project Navlekha, which would allow them to easily start their website and publish on a branded domain with a few simple clicks.