Two Voice Devs and Voicebot on Google Ending Conversational Actions (Voice Apps) – VIDEO

Google announced this week that it will be sunsetting support for third-party conversational actions–the voice apps that work with Google Assistant–in June 2023. The introduction of Amazon Alexa and the third-party skill developer ecosystem was matched by Google with its conversational actions developer ecosystem. There were plenty of first-party, native voice experiences offered by the voice assistants but both companies also wanted third parties to develop unique consumer experiences that leveraged their voice assistants.

The idea was to replicate the mobile apps store model for voice assistants with external companies enhancing the value of the smart speakers and smart displays that Amazon and Google were producing. Voice assistants, smart speakers, and voice app “marketplaces” have not yet reached the consumer adoption of smartphones and their respective app stores. Google decided there was no point in maintaining a separate app store just for voice and it is encourages conversational action developers to port their experiences over to Android apps.

Interview with Allen Firstenburg and Mark Tucker – The End of Google Conversational Actions

This special edition of the Voicebot Podcast showcases Allen Firstenburg and Mark Tucker who are active developers of conversational actions and other voice app experiences. They are both also well known in the voice developer community in part from their Two Voice Devs podcast and YouTube show.

Firstenburg is a Google Assistant Google Developer Expert (GDE) as a trusted outside developer with expertise in the technology stack. Tucker is an Amazon Alexa Champion and Samsung Bixby Premier Developer and also a senior technical director at RAIN agency. So, we start with some solid expertise to break down this topic.

Voicebot Podcast host, Bret Kinsella, is also joined by Voicebot.ai head writer Eric Schwartz. Kinsella and Schwartz interviewed Rebecca Nathenson, the product manager for Google Assistant, prior to the announcement. That access offers some unique insights into how Google is viewing this shift of Google Assistant to more of a first-party focus combined with expanded support for Android apps.

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You can listen to the podcast interview above, on Google or Apple Podcasts, or most of the leading podcast players.

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