Google on Thursday made a slew of announcements for the India market, including Google Assistant-enabled vaccine booking, introduction of ‘Hinglish’ language on Google Pay, and a partnership with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for a ₹110-crore financial assistance to micro-enterprises.
“Across people, businesses, and institutions, the outbreak of COVID-19 has catapulted India’s adoption of digital to unprecedented levels,” Sanjay Gupta, country head & vice president, Google India, said at the seventh edition of ‘Google for India’.
Google is piloting its first-ever Google Assistant-enabled, end-to-end vaccine booking flow in India that would guide users through the process of booking a vaccination appointment on the CoWIN website with voice guidance in eight Indian languages at each step.
Language option
Google said it was also introducing a new feature in Search that would give users an option to access web pages from other languages and view it in their preferred local language.
The company also announced an India-first feature that would enable people to hear Search results out loud, making it easier for users who prefer consuming information by listening.
For Google Pay, the company announced an additional option of selecting ‘Hinglish’ as a preferred language, a first for Google globally. The company will soon also roll out a speech-to-text support to allow users to use voice as an input to add account numbers into the app to initiate a payment, and an additional feature to split bills for shared expenses within a group.