Google, Inc.’s answer to Amazon.com, Inc.’s Alexa smart home assistant will be launched Wednesday at Google’s annual I/O conference, according to a new report.

The New York Times claims the device will be called Google Home and will be able to answer simple questions and carry out basic tasks.

The device itself will go on sale in the fall, a considerable time away, but Google is said to be wanting to “plant a stake in the ground now” for the device, presumably so it can build up relationships with developers and third-party service providers to add extra functionality to the device before it goes on sale.

News that Google was working on an Alexa competitor first emerged in March, when it was also claimed that Google was working on the device without its Alphabet, Inc. sibling company Nest, who specialize in smart home devices.

A subsequent report last week provided additional details about the device which had an internal project name of “Chirp” and is said to resemble Google’s OnHub wireless router.

As we pointed out in that last report, Google Home will have one strong advantage over Amazon’s Echo: it will be relying on results and services from Google itself to both deliver answers and to undertake tasks, an immediate heads up if indeed Google is looking to take on the Echo head-to-head.

New battleground

Smart virtual agents are not exactly new with services such as Siri, as featured in Apple products, having been around for half a decade, but dedicated smart home assistants, virtual digital butlers if you like, appears to be a new battleground.

Since launching two years ago, the Amazon Echo has been a surprise hit, despite some not fully understanding the utility of the device; at launch that was an understandable conclusion, but in those two years Amazon has continued to expand Alexa’s abilities to cover an increasing range of third-party services.

Today the Echo can be used to order a Domino’s Pizza, book an Uber X car, or undertake a range of other things all via voice command, literally in the space of two years creating a new market that never previously existed.

Google will be playing catchup with Google Home and is unlikely to be able to compete with the Echo’s full range of services at launch, but given the search giant’s power and reach, they will eventually catch up to the Echo, and then the fight will be on for smart home assistant market dominance.

Image credit: Google OnHub.