Google is reportedly pitching Assistant ‘How-To’ videos to brands and is going to show these new videos off at Google I/O next month. Whether or not that will be during the keynote speech or a separate session is unclear, but bringing brands into the fold with how-to videos would be a good way to make consumers more familiar with Google Assistant and the brands and services that it’s compatible with so people can make better use of its ever-expanding functionality. Some how-to videos may already be available and ready to show off to consumers with devices that are powered by Google Assistant but at the moment users don’t have access to see any of these videos.
While users would be able to ask Google how to do something via Assistant on their smartphones resulting in a how-to video surfacing on the mobile display, it’s also likely that this could be a precursor to Google launching a smart display of its own to fit in the Google Home lineup of smart speakers, which already includes the Google Home, Google Home Mini, and Google Home Max. There are also a handful of smart displays on the way from other brands that are powered by Google Assistant which were announced over the last few months, such as the one from Lenovo, JBL’s Link View, and a smart display from Sony which could make use of these how-to videos to show users the process for completing something with step-by-step instructions.
This could also work as a way for Google to monetize Google Assistant by charging brands to use Google Assistant for a how-to video so that consumers would be presented with possible how-to results to their questions from popular brands, though at the moment it’s said that Google is not going to monetize these videos to begin with. It could however have plans to do so down the line and with more of a focus on Google Assistant this past year and going forward, monetizing the digital assistant would give Google another stream of revenue as users ask for help from Assistant instead of typing questions into Google Search where Google makes most of its money thanks to advertising.