Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. HOMEPAGE

Why Google's smart assistant doesn't have a name like Siri, Alexa, or Cortana

When Google unveiled its new smart assistant earlier this week, it revealed the most basic name possible: Assistant.

Advertisement

Unlike Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, or Amazon's Alexa, "Assistant" isn't catchy. It has no identity.

You don't even really call it that — to summon it from Google's new smart speaker, you'd address it with a simple "Hey, Google" or the same "OK, Google" that you'd use to activate its voice search and predictive service, Google Now.

blue robot
Not the robot in question but you get the idea. Flickr/Peyri Herrera

But Assistant's lack of personality was quite intentional, according to Jonathan Jarvis, a former creative director on Google's Labs team. While at the company, he led a team doing concept, strategy, and design on products like the Search app and even Alphabet's logo rebrand.

Jarvis worked on Assistant only up until February, so he wasn't there for the final decision to use "Assistant" as the platform's name. But he says that Google had spent a long time talking about whether or not it should personify its digital assistant.

Advertisement
Jonathan Jarvis
Jonathan Jarvis. Human Ventures

"We always wanted to make it feel like you were the agent, and it was more like a superpower that you had and a tool that you used," he tells Business Insider. "If you create this personified assistant, that feels like a different relationship."

For that reason, Assistant likely won't be telling you jokes or serving up sassy responses, either.

We also heard while at I/O that Google didn't want to give its assistant a gender or make it seem too American.

While the team didn't want to give it a personality, they had to call it something, or else it would be hard to distinguish it from regular Google, even though that's essentially what it is — all of Google's services mashed together with extra machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Advertisement

Jarvis left Google earlier this year to join the startup studio Human Ventures, where he's working on a stealth new company that he plans to launch in the fall. He says that he's known for a while that he wanted to start his own company, but that the community and team-building offered by Human helped convince him to finally make the leap.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Google
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.

Jump to

  1. Main content
  2. Search
  3. Account