Starting this week, we'll start a pilot to confirm holiday hours for a small number of local businesses in New Zealand with the help of the Google Duplex technology. Duplex makes it possible for AI to conduct natural conversations to carry out complex tasks over the phone.

Businesses in this pilot group will receive an automated call from Google asking to confirm their hours for the upcoming Labour Day public holiday on October 28. Once confirmed, these times will automatically be updated on Google Maps and Search for anyone searching for the business info for the holiday. This not only helps people save time during busy holidays, but also ensures that businesses maximise foot traffic at their stores.

We’re also mindful of including controls for businesses. If a business wants to opt-out of receiving calls from Google, we’ll honour that. You can tell us over the phone or change your settings in Google My Business. As always, we’ll disclose that the business is speaking with an automated system when making a call. Business owners can also learn more about calls from Google here.

Post content Posted by Scott Huffman, Google’s VP of Engineering.