Need a Reservation? Google Duplex Can Do It in 43 States

Short on time, but need to make a restaurant reservation? In most US states, the Google Assistant can now help you out with that.

Google on Wednesday announced that its artificial intelligence-powered Duplex feature for the virtual assistant can now call in your restaurant reservations in 43 US states. (Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas will have to wait.)

"All it takes is a few seconds to tell your Assistant where you'd like to go," Scott Huffman, VP of Google Assistant Engineering, wrote in a blog post. "Just ask the Assistant on your phone, 'Book a table for four people at [restaurant name] tomorrow night.'"

From there, the virtual assistant will call the restaurant and try to make a reservation for you at your specified time. If it's successful, you'll get a notification on your phone as well as an email reminder and calendar invite.

At this point, the feature is only available on Pixel handsets, but Huffman said Google plans to bring it to "more Android and iOS devices" over the next few weeks.

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"We look forward to bringing this service to more people across the US to make planning a night out just a bit easier," Huffman wrote.

First announced at Google I/O in May, the Duplex feature for Google Assistant can also place calls on your behalf to book appointments. The demo was impressive, but the technology itself prompted concern about misuse. Google later said Duplex will identify itself when calling businesses, so people don't feel duped.