- Google is pulling the plug on its Duplex on the Web AI service
- The service Google is pulling the plug on its Duplex on the Web AI service
Google has announced the closing of its Duplex on the Web service, an AI-powered tool launched in 2019 to assist customers with a variety of online tasks such as buying airline tickets or streamlining the check-in process for flights on airline websites.
As originally reported by TechCrunch, Google has updated the Duplex on its Web support page. According to the page’s current statement, “Duplex on the Web is deprecated and will no longer be supported as of December, 2022.” After this date, any automation features enabled by Duplex on the Web will no longer be supported.”
The service was first announced at Google I/O 2019 as an extension to its call-automating Duplex technology. And, while the use case was initially limited to purchasing movie tickets, the service gradually expanded to include data breach protection and e-commerce checkout assistance.
Google has not stated why it is discontinuing the service, but according to TechCrunch, the cost of training and fine-tuning resource-intensive AI models could be the reason. Furthermore, if website owners prevent the crawler from indexing their content, Duplex on the Web’s performance may suffer significantly. The company has been looking to invest less in developing Google Assistant and Google Assistant-powered services for non-Google devices.
A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch, “As we continue to improve the Duplex experience, we’re responding to feedback from users and developers about how to make it even better.” By the end of this year, we plan to discontinue Duplex on the Web and focus solely on AI advancements to the Duplex voice technology that helps people every day.”
