Google Shuts Down Duplex on the Web, Its Attempt To Bring AI Smarts To Retail Sites and More

Google is shutting down Duplex on the Web, its AI-powered set of services that navigated sites to simplify the process of ordering food, purchasing movie tickets and more. From a report: According to a note on a Google support page, Google on the Web and any automation features enabled by it will no longer be supported as of this month. Google introduced Duplex on the Web, an outgrowth of its call-automating Duplex technology, during its 2019 Google I/O developer conference. To start, it was focused on a couple of narrow use cases, including opening a movie theater chain's website to fill out all of the necessary information on a user's behalf -- pausing to prompt for choices like seats. But Duplex on the Web later expanded to passwords, helping users automatically change passwords exposed in a data breach, as well as assisted checkout for ecommerce retailers, flight check-in for airline sites and automatic discount finding. The promise of Duplex on the Web was that you'd be able to issue Google Assistant a command like "Book me a car from Hertz" and have Duplex pull up the relevant web page and automatically fill in details like your name, car preferences, trip dates, payment information (using information from Gmail and Chrome autofill), and more.

limited number of sites and partners supported

[Joe_Dragon]

and for sites that did not want it can become an game of cat and mouse to get around the tarps the site owns put up.

Re:

[tysonedwards]

No kidding! I bought a Pixel 4 XL after the Duplex demo, and waited for it to launch. Then waited to be in the test coverage area. And then waited to be in the ring fencing group to join... I've still yet to have a single "Wait on hold for me" call, or the on-screen list of IVR options, or transcription, or ... They may have launched it, but despite trying, I've yet to see it once despite trying.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

AI isn't very good if it can't even navigate a website and intuit how it works like a human would.

Ahh yes "just in time pricing"...

[blahplusplus]

... I can't wait.

As per usual

[fyngyrz]

Just one more for the Google Graveyard [killedbygoogle.com].

Re: As per usual

[TuballoyThunder]

Why any business would rely on Google is beyond me. Changing a workflow because Google lost interest is expensive.

There's a reason why grocery stores

[rsilvergun]

are a labyrinthine mess. They want you there as long as they can so they can sell you more crap. Websites are no different, with an experience crafted to maximize your spending.

An app designed to get you in and out was never going to be a money maker.

Duplex technology was outdated anyway

[Visarga]

Nowadays you can have a more convincing AI experience if you use chatGPT with a speech interface. It does bookings, but it's not made for bookings. It can do 10,000 other tasks.