A Mission To Help People Get Things Done In A Better Way

Rishi Chandra, Vice President and General Manager, Home Products, Google

- Ng Chong Seng

It’s been 18 months since Google launched the first Home speaker. What has the team learned so far from users? Anything that the team didn’t expect until customers started using Home?

A couple of things surprised me. One was the amount of time kids spent with the product. Kids of all ages actually think of it as a primary computing device. They don’t expect to type into Google, they expect to talk to Google. And a lot of questions that kids asked are questions we’d never have thought of, like “What’s your favorite color?”

The second piece we learned is that voice control is what makes the smart home take off. It’s hard to explain the value of a smart home with a phone, because the phone is a little cumbersome. But put a Google Home in there and anyone can use it – talk to it and tell it what to do. We didn’t anticipate how much engagement we’re going to get because of Home’s smart home capability.