John Legend voices Google Assistant, won’t use new cameo himself: it ‘might be a little freaky at home’
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Singer John Legend is the newest voice of the Google Assistant, the tech company announced Wednesday. (REUTERS/Kyle Grillot - HP1EE9I02J8I0)
Google Assistant users, get ready to have the silky voice of John Legend in your home.
The tech company on Wednesday announced the 40-year-old singer as the voice of its virtual assistant for a limited time in the U.S.
Legend’s voice will be able to give users the weather forecast, sing happy birthday and tell jokes. His voice will also tell you a few things about the singer’s personal life, including about his wife, Chrissy Teigen.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}JOHN LEGEND AND CHRISSY TEIGEN TO APPEAR AT ANNUAL DEMOCRATIC RETREAT
There will also be a few Easter eggs.
Though Legend does use a Google Assistant with his family, he told People he probably wouldn’t use his own cameo at home.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“It might be a little weird to use it in my own voice,” Legend told People. “We already use the Google Assistant all the time, and we’ll probably stick with the static voice. Using mine might be a little freaky at home.”
In order to make Legend’s cameo a possibility, Google used an A.I. technology called WaveNet to teach the virtual assistant how to sound like Legend himself, so the singer didn’t have to record every possible answer, Variety reported.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}However, the “All of Me” singer still had to go into the studio.
“We went to the studio, I think, 10 days in a row where I was saying all types of phrases and sentences and words with different inflections and all kinds of things,” he told People. “Google has some kind of amazing algorithm, but it takes a lot of recording to do that.”
Legend’s voice won’t be able to answer every question, though. Google’s announcement said his cameo will only be used for “select content.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}One of the regular voices will answer questions outside of that content.
The mode, which can be enabled by telling the virtual assistant to “talk like a Legend,” or to change the voice through settings, will be available on any Google Assistant device including Google Home smart speakers, Smart Displays and Android and iOS phones.