Google Now is an
intelligent personal assistant developed by
Google. Google Now is available within the
Google Search mobile application for
Android and
iOS, as well as the
Google Chrome web browser on personal computers. Google Now uses a
natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of
web services. Along with answering user-initiated queries, Google Now proactively delivers to users information that it predicts (based on their search habits) they may want. It was first included in Android
4.1 ("Jelly Bean"), which launched on July 9, 2012, and was first supported on the
Galaxy Nexus smartphone. The service was made available for iOS on April 29, 2013 without most of its features. Google Now was released for Google Chrome on March 24, 2014.
Popular Science named Google Now the "Innovation of the Year" for 2012. Google Now mainly competes against assistants such as
Apple's
Siri and
Microsoft's
Cortana.