Google Home is barely six months old, and Google is piling on new features. On Wednesday at its I/O developer conference in Mountain View, the company announced upgrades focused on personalizing your interactions and making them hands-free. Presented by Rishi Chandra, Google's Vice President for Home Products, the new features leapfrog Amazon's popular Echo assistant in some ways, while in other ways Google is just catching up. "A phone call is still the easiest way" to communicate with others, Chandra said, as he announced the availability of hands-free calling for Google Home. "Just ask the Google assistant to make the call and we can connect you to any land or cell line in the U.S. or Canada completely free," he said.

Andy Wood and Matt Kirshen test the limits of everyday AI against a variety of accents in linguistics tests designed to determine which AI is the best at understanding the most people. Check out more of Matt and Andy on their podcast at http://www.probablyscience.com Still haven't subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? http://wrd.cm/15fP7B7 CONNECT WITH WIRED Web: http://wired.com ABOUT WIRED WIRED is where tomorrow is realized.

Google will bring Assistant to iOS devices. Previously, the program was only available on Google's Home assistant and Android. The program will bring the same home assistant functionality to iPhones and other iOS devices, allowing users to ask questions and get information automatically. Users will also be able to type directions and questions directly into Assistant in situations where they don't want to directly talk into the phone. However, the app is expected to come with some basic limitations on iOS, since Apple notably has its own Assistant competitor in Siri.

Google announced a host of new features for its Google Home AI assistant at its I/O 2017 keynote Wednesday. New features include proactive assistance, hands-free calling, visual responses and expanded support for various music and video applications. Proactive assistance helps users keep on top of tasks that are already included within other features such as Google Calendar. For example, Google Home will alert users of when they need to leave home to get to an event on time. Hands-free calling allows users to enable a phone call by simply asking Google Home to call a contact.

Chat bots, robots, virtual assistants and other devices powered by business algorithms are rapidly joining the ranks of workers in every industry and profession. But instead of fearing artificial intelligence (AI) and resultant job losses, it's up to human resource (HR) professionals to cultivate these innovations for the opportunities they bring to people and the company. I tuned in to a recent episode of Changing the Game with HR entitled, Reimagining HR: Will Machines Replace the Human Side of Business?, to hear a group of smart thinkers share their insights on AI with SAP Radio host and moderator Bonnie D. Graham. How HR can help make sure AI isn't the worst thing to happen to humanity Instead of the usual gloom and doom scenario for unemployed workers, Andi Britt, European Talent and Engagement at IBM, framed AI in a much more positive light. "All of us suffer from information overload so why can't we use technology smartly to do some of the analysis, the filtering of data for us," he said.

Virtual assistants like Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant are only good when they're nearby. The whole appeal of these services--someday, anyway, once they're past the phase of only being good for setting timers and listening to NPR--is for them to follow you around, carrying all necessary knowledge about your life and your preferences. If the speaker in your living room knows where you live and how the traffic is, but can't tell your phone or your car, it's not much good at all. Google Assistant is coming to iOS. The app is free and available in the US, with more countries to come soon.

Little known secret about me, I love to bake. It doesn't matter if it's cakes, cookies, or bread, you name it and I've probably at least attempted to make it. So when I found out the Google Home added recipes to its repertoire, I knew I had to try it out for myself. But, you've also been able to cook with Google's competitor, the Amazon Echo, for a while now. How was I supposed to know which one was more helpful in the kitchen?

Google Assistant is getting all the attention so far at the company's annual I/O showcase. It can see, it can (finally) work on your iPhone, and starting this summer, Google Assistant will be able to detect and respond in French, German, Brazilian-Portuguese and Japanese. By the end of the year, after even more digital cramming, Assistant will also talk Italian, Spanish and Korean.

Users will soon see Google's AI Assistant in a number of new devices -- including the Apple iPhone -- the company announced at its I/O conference in Mountain View, California on Wednesday. Assistant debuted in 2016 and was originally integrated into the company's Pixel phone and Home smart hub. It's since spread to more than 100 million individual devices, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the crowd at this year's conference, including smart TVs, automobiles and wearables. And it's about to be in a lot more. While Assistant already works with more than 70 smart home device makers, the company announced that it will soon release an Assistant SDK so that developers hardware manufacturers can integrate the service into even more devices -- anything from speakers to blenders, smart locks to web cameras.

Google Assistant is becoming more conversational with better AI, but what happens when you want to ask a question that you'd rather not say out loud? Today, Google added the ability to type into Google Assistant, making it easier to converse with the AI helper -- even if you're in a loud (or extra-quiet) environment. The ability to query Assistant with text has been part of Allo for a while, but this is the first time it's been enabled directly in Google Assistant, which is also now on your iPhone.