Google LLC made its presence known at ‎the CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas this week, introducing a slew of new capabilities and integrations for its voice assistant.

The updates, announced Tuesday, tick several boxes in the search giant’s strategy for driving Google Assistant adoption.

One is making the service more handy for users on the go. The company is making Google Assistant available inside the Android and iOS versions of Google Maps to let consumers do more during their commutes.

New voice commands make it possible to search for notable spots alongside the designated travel route, play music and share an estimated time of arrival with contacts. The integration also enables users to verbally reply to messages in over half a dozen chat services.

For longer trips, Google Assistant now provides the ability to check into flights and book hotel rooms. Users can log information about their travel plans, such as restaurant shortlists, using new integrations with popular note-taking services, including Google Keep.

Topping it all off is a real-time voice translation capability dubbed Interpreter Mode. It supports 27 languages on launch and aims to make it easier for travelers to get around abroad.

“Just say ‘Hey Google, be my French interpreter’ to start Interpreter Mode and get real-time spoken and (on Smart Displays) written translation to aid the conversation,” Manuel Bronstein, vice president of product for Google Assistant, wrote in a blog post. “We see this technology expanding to more places — it could help you check in at a foreign hotel or help you understand the bus schedule.”

Interpreter Mode could potentially drive demand for Google Assistant devices among certain types of companies, notably hotels and retailers, that have international customers to support. Google relies in part on its partners to address these kinds of niche use cases. The company lets outside developers extend Google Assistant’s capabilities and works with hardware makers to integrate the service into their devices.

Google hopes to boost this latter piece of its ecosystem with Google Assistant Connect, the perhaps biggest announcement it made at CES. It’s a set of development tools designed to simplify the process of building voice-powered devices.

Until now, taking advantage of Google Assistant required hardware makers to equip their products with a microphone, relatively sophisticated silicon and software for accessing the service’s cloud backend. Now, gadgets can achieve all that by simplifying connecting to an existing Google Assistant device in a user’s home. That approach significantly reduces the amount of resources needed to bring a new voice-powered product to market.

Lowering the entry barrier to development could help grow Google Assistant ecosystem, as well as usher in a new generation of inexpensive smart home appliances.

“For example, a partner could create a simple and inexpensive e-ink display that continually projects the weather or your calendar, while using Assistant Connect to deliver content from your linked smart speaker,” Bronstein explained. “The Google Assistant handles the higher-order computing — knowing what’s on the calendar, checking for updates and so on.”

Photo: Google