Google Opens its Digital Assistant to Developers in Race Against Amazon's Alexa

Two months after rolling out its digital assistant, Google is opening its doors to outside developers to help the company chase rivals, particularly Amazon.com On Thursday, the Alphabet Inc. unit launched a system for developers to build chatbots that work with Google Assistant, its voice-based virtual helper. The tools, called Conversation Actions, will let companies and other third parties interact with Google users by building bots that answer questions and, eventually, sell and book things through voice controls. Developers can seek approval for phrases that come after "Ok, Google" (the words that summon the Assistant) to launch the interactive bots. So, in the future if someone says, "Ok, Google, talk to Target," a chatbot for the retailer might appear and help the person buy things through a conversation, for example.