File photo: Google Home is displayed during the presentation of new Google hardware in San Francisco, California, U.S. October 4, 2016. (REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach)
Google Home surprised users Thursday by slipping in a promo for the movie ‘Beauty and the Beast’ into its ‘My Day’ feature.
A group of Google Home users posted their findings on Reddit, noting that after asking for the weather and news as part of a daily briefing, Google Home added that Disney’s Beauty and the Beast movie was opening. "By the way, Beauty and The Beast opens in theaters today,” the smart speaker said.
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However, the company said it wasn’t an ad, rather an experiment, running on the smart speaker.
"This wasn't intended to be an ad," said a Google spokesperson in a statement to CNet. "What's circulating online was a part of our My Day feature, where after providing helpful information about your day, we sometimes call out timely content. We're continuing to experiment with new ways to surface unique content for users and we could have done better in this case."
Disney, the movie studio behind ‘Beauty and the Beast,' could not be immediately reached for comment for this story.
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Google has been under fire from investors on how its advertising business will evolve in the age of artificial intelligence and voice search.
At the unveiling of the device in May 2016, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that the Google Assistant was “an ambient experience that goes across devices - this is more than just phones, it will be on devices they wear, in their car and in their living rooms.”
Google Home, which costs $130, is intended to compete with Amazon’s Echo series of speakers. It can do everything from providing information about the weather, news, upcoming calendar events and more.
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