I usually don’t write about work, but making an exception: today we announced that 5 years after launch, business information sourced from Duplex’s phone calls has been shown in Google Search and Maps over 1 trillion times!

Here’s the full announcement:

Five years ago, we launched Google Duplex to help people and businesses spend less time on mundane tasks and more time focusing on their lives. 📱 Since then, business information sourced from Duplex’s phone calls has been shown in Search and Maps over 1 trillion times!

Duplex calls are a major contributor to keeping local business hours fresh and accurate globally on Google Search and Maps — including on holidays like Memorial Day. 🛍️

Duplex can check other things beyond business hours, like if a restaurant has outdoor seating, wheelchair accessibility, or if a store takes batteries or plastic bags for recycling.

Duplex operates in 13 countries, and is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Hindi and Japanese. 🌎 And a new expansion in India can chat in Hinglish — a mix of English and Hindi. The AI bot can understand vocal cues and cultural nuances, so nothing is “lost in translation.”

Here’s Sundar’s presentation of Google Duplex in Google I/O May 2018 - what a journey it’s been!