Google Duplex on the Web Shuts Down This Month

Google decided to shut down the artificial intelligence-powered Duplex on the Web feature for its virtual Assistant.

I imagine at least half of the people reading this will be wondering what Duplex on the Web is, which is probably a big part of the reason Google decided to shut it down.

Duplex was first revealed in 2018 and allows Google Assistant to mimic a human voice and make reservations, book an appointment, rent a car, or check opening times for you over the phone. Duplex on the Web expanded the functionality to include automatically navigating websites to, for example, book movie tickets for you.

As spotted by TechCrunch, a note has been added to the Duplex on the Web support page, stating "Duplex on the Web is deprecated, and will no longer be supported as of December, 2022. Any automation features enabled by Duplex on the Web will no longer be supported after this date." From that we can assume as the new year arrives Duplex on the Web will be gone.

Duplex on the Web support wasn't exactly widespread and looked to be an intensive process for Google to maintain. The support page details how it was limited to certain partners in specific industries and locations, required "a few hours or days" to enable it on a website, and needed regular training against each site to ensure it continued to work. The other limitation was where it worked, which was limited to the Chrome browser on Android and desktop.

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