HackerTube.dev

Google Duplex: A.I. Assistant Calls Local Businesses To Make Appointments

Jeff Grubb's Game Mess · 4.7M views · 2018-05-08 · 4:12

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

A short clip of the Google I/O 2018 demo in which Google Assistant's Duplex phones a salon and a restaurant to make appointments. The calls sound like a natural human conversation.

On Hacker News

Mostly cited as an example of an overhyped or possibly staged AI demo, alongside later skeptical comparisons to other company demos.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2019–2026

Topics

LLMs & generative AIComputer vision, speech & NLP
Search by tags
google duplexgoogle assistantai demogoogle iovoice ai

What people said

godelski · 2026-06 · Criticism

> What "product that doesn't exist" is Apple selling? Google? Who is paying for it? >>> My Google Pixel phone still can't schedule a haircut for me or book a reservation at a restaurant, despite multiple promises This example has been in how many Android announcements? 8 years ago: [VIDEO] You're telling me you haven't seen the same promise for 8 years?

Read the original HN comment ↗
pogue · 2025-09 · Criticism

This sounds an awful lot like Microsoft's Recall , only implemented in the browser. Granted, there have been a lot of times I have trouble finding a website in my history, open tabs or even bookmarks, so I could potentially see how that might be advantageous as long as I was in a situation where I had a second browser for "non-work" related tasks, or this was strictly prohibited in in-private mode. >4. Find webpages you previously visited >For those frustrating instances when you want to jump back into a past project but don’t want to scroll through your history to find an important website you previously visited, soon you’ll be able to use Gemini in Chrome to recall it for you. Once launched, you can try prompts like “what was the website that I saw the walnut desk on last week?” or “what was that blog I read on back to school shopping?” As for their "agentic browsing assistant", I don't have much trouble adding stuff to my shopping cart or other minor tasks. I'm still waiting on that 'Google Duplex' [1] feature they announced years ago that claimed Google would make phone calls for me to make appointments and etc. Make a doctor's appointment? Dispute a charge on my bill? That's what I want. [1] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
nxobject · 2025-01 · Reference

Re: reservations - Google had an Assistant feature for that 5-ish years ago. I think it only really worked in a limited number of domains though (restaurants, restaurants, and more restaurants…) [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Jeff Grubb's Game Mess, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Matches the configured criteria
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources