Google Assistant will officially arrive on all Android devices running Android 6.0 and above

Google Assistant is coming to your Android device soon. Yes, no root, no Gapps. That is if you have a device that runs on Android 6.0 and above. The rollout to Android devices running Marshmallow and above will open up the Google Assistant to about 30 percent of Android users. Surprised? There were speculations this might happen ever since the Google Assistant arrived onto the scene as a Pixel exclusive. This theory got more traction when developers showed that turning on the Google Assistant on other devices was as easy as changing a couple lines in the build.prop file. Then the Google Assistant was rolled out to all Android TV devices, the Google Home already had it. LG G6 was supposed to have it and then it accidentally got enabled for some non-pixel users through a leaked alpha build of the Google App. Not to mention it was available on all Android 4.1 devices already via Allo.

In conjunction with the official launch of the LG G6 (which LG and Google today announced will be shipping with the an “optimized” version of the Google Assistant that can work with the screen turned off), the news about Google Assistant coming to all Android devices is also official and Google says the Assistant will be rolling out to English users in the United States first, followed by Australia, Canada, and the UK and then to German users in Germany.

As on the Google Pixel, Assistant will replace Now on tap and can be launched by long pressing the home button or with the "Ok Google" voice command. Google "rollouts" can take a few weeks, so don't expect it to pop up on your phone later tonight. But soon, an update to the Google Search app—which the Assistant is a part of—should arrive and enable the new voice interface on all devices that can handle it.

Here’s the word, straight from the Google blog:

Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes. Enter the Google Assistant, which is conversational, personal and helps you get things done—from telling you about your day to taking a selfie. The Assistant is already available on Pixel, Google Home, Google Allo and Android Wear. Now we’re bringing it to even more people. Starting this week, the Google Assistant is coming to smartphones running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

The company says the period of exclusivity on the Pixel was about refining the Assistant experience before rolling it out to the masses. “It was a new product and we wanted to make sure we took the baby steps required,” Product Lead for Assistant Gummi Hafsteinsson told Bloomberg.

Source : Google