Google Assistant now speaks in Arabic in Saudi Arabia

Google Assistant will be able to sing you songs and tell you jokes, all in Arabic.

Google’s very own AI virtual assistant will now be conversing in Arabic on both Android and iOS phones.

Launched in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, this Google Assistant version will be able to comprehend the Saudi dialect and be able to answer in Arabic. The Assistant will be also be available in Egypt where people will be able to converse with it in the Egyptian dialect.

This version will help its users in daily tasks such as hands-free calling, checking the weather and prayer timings, text messaging all without having to touch the device. In addition to this it will be able to draw from cultural moments such as plays, viral videos and even Arabic ancient poetry. While building the Assistant in Arabic, Google developed new technology to process and generate diacritics, the accents that are used for Arabic to say the same letters in different ways.

All users need to do to activate this new Assistant is make sure they have the latest version available of their mobile operating system and that their device language in Arabic. Upon downloading the Google app, users can then pick between the Saudi and Egyptian dialect.