Google Assistant Will Now Offer Radio-Style, On-Demand News From Publishers

Current partners include notable publishers, such as USA Today, Billboard, American Public Media, SCMP, New York Times, KQED, Axios, Associated Press, The Hollywood Reporter, and more.

"This new experience will bring you an audio news playlist assembled in that moment, for you", Gannes said.

However, there were some caveats to this - aside from your chosen station's political leaning, you couldn't really choose the exact kind of news you wanted to ingest on a daily basis, and you were also at the mercy of the station's schedule and ads. Looking forward to getting to use it yourself?

Google has replaced the letterbox with email, TV with YouTube, and now the firm wants to go after Radio with the Google Home and Assistant.

Each news briefing kicks off with updates and top stories from the topics each individual user cares about, that leading into longer-form news covering other news stories. At any point in your day when you want to listen to the latest news-as a morning wake-up, during your commute, or while jogging-the Google Assistant will be ready with new stories and updates to the ones you've already heard. And if you don't like what's playing, you can always ask the Assistant to jump to the next story. However, the content is usually taken from television or radio casts.

By creating an open audio news standard, Google is aiming to go a step beyond Amazon, instead of merely following in its footsteps. After going through a few quick stories, longer-form content will be introduced to the mix.

Here is the content guidelines for this audio news format. For now, a story is expected to be less than two minutes for short-format entries and between two and 15 minutes for medium-format listings. The company is also inviting interested media publishers to join the project.

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