Google offers up to $10,000 in prizes for new Google Assistant actions

In an effort to get more developers investing in Google Assistant, Google has challenged devs to create some compelling new Actions for it. In return, the search giant is offering more than 20 prizes, including $10,000, and a trip to Google I/O 2018.

Actions is the platform on which developers build Google Assistant interactions, be it for Android, iOS or Google Home. This opened up to developers in December last year, and can be taken advantage of to extend the functionality of regular apps with Assistant-enabled features. (You can watch a video on building actions for Google Assistant here.)

Developers have until August 31 to submit their apps to Google for the contest, and the app that scores the highest in “creativity, relevance, quality and usage” will win the overall prize of $10,000 and a chance to visit the Google Headquarters.

Apps are judged by a panel of Google experts, and aside from the grand prize, there are a number of other categories in which devs can win smaller rewards, including: “best voice only interaction”, “best life hack”, “most adaptive app”, and “most fun distraction”.

Devs can submit up to three apps for the competition, but residents of Italy, Brazil, Quebec, Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, or Sudan are ineligible.

This is a smart way to get developers thinking about how they can apply their own apps to Google’s growing Assistant platform, and with free entry, it could attract a lot of submissions and unearth some exciting new products. Read the full details of the contest over at the Google Developers blog.