We at Gupshup are happy to announce our partnership with Google to bring voice-activated actions on Google Home. Google Home is a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant that can play music, activate smart devices, give you the latest traffic updates, and also answer certain questions.

Starting today, bot builders can use Gupshup’s tools to develop voice-activated bots for Google Home. These bots, called Actions are built for Google Assistant. Currently, Google Assistant is available only to owners of the Google Home device but it will soon be available through the Pixel phone, the Allo app and many more experiences.

Users can activate these bots by using an Invocation Name. Each bot has a unique Invocation Name that has to be approved by Google. Once a bot is invoked you can interact with it based on the commands it responds to. Find out the weather in a city by invoking the weather bot, say the name of your favourite publication to get the latest news in tech or invoke the joke bot for a laugh.

To get started on developing bots for Google Home using Gupshup, check out this detailed guide. You can also see a screencast of a voice-activated bot in action: