Google unleashes Duplex for the web, lets you buy movie tickets with your voice

At the beginning of October, we told you about how you could use Google Assistant and the Chrome browser you buy movie tickets using (mostly) just your voice. Today, the company is finally making this Google Assistant movies feature official and announcing the associated partners.

Starting now, you can simply ask Assistant something like, “Hey Google, showtimes for Ford vs Ferrari in New Haven this weekend,” and it will get to work. Through voice commands and touch input in the Chrome browser, you can find a theater, choose your seats, and complete your purchase with Assistant doing most of the work.

This Google Assistant movies feature is possible through Google Duplex, the same system that allows you to make restaurant reservations over the phone without needing to talk to anyone. Duplex does the heavy lifting when you ask Assistant to book you some movie tickets: it fills in forms, adds your credit card info, and moves from screen-to-screen within the browser while you just follow along and answer questions.

Check out how it works in the GIF below:

As of now, this Google Assistant movies feature works with AMC, Fandango, MJR Theaters, and Movietickets.com in the US as well as Odeon in the UK. Unfortunately, if your favorite theater or ticketing service isn’t a partner with Google on this initiative, you’ll need to buy tickets the “old fashioned” way by actually inputting the information yourself (the horror!).

It should be noted that this feature will only work on Assistant through a smartphone, not on home products such as the Google Nest Mini. Eventually, Duplex will be able to do more things than just book you a movie ticket, such as renting you a car.