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LG's 2018 TVs will have Google Assistant built in

LG's 2018 TVs will have Google Assistant built in

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Alongside LG’s own digital assistant

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Image: LG

LG is getting ready to announce its lineup of new OLED TVs at CES this year (including a monstrous 88-inch 8K panel), and as a tide-me-over, the company has announced that its new TVs this year are getting Google Assistant.

In the past, LG has shipped its TVs with a webOS-based operating system that included the company’s own voice assistant, but the company is taking things a step further by including Google Assistant on its OLED and “Super UHD” LCD displays under its “ThinQ” artificial intelligence branding (shared by LG’s recently announced Google-powered smart speaker).

Two digital assistants are better than one, right?

LG’s integrated assistant strategy seems to be two-fold. You’ll be able to use the ThinQ AI for more contextual, TV-specific tasks, like asking to “search for the soundtrack of this movie” or “turn off the TV when this program is over.” But users in some countries (LG hasn’t yet specified which ones) will also have access to Google Assistant on top of that for controlling smart home devices or accessing anything else Google Assistant can do. LG also says that its ThinQ AI TVs will be able to serve as a central smart home hub, too. The TVs will likely still run webOS underneath these new ThinQ features.

Alongside its updated ThinQ AI initiatives, LG is also introducing a new image processor on its upcoming TVs, the Alpha 9, which the company claims will allow for improved noise reduction and better color performance, and offer support for 120 fps high frame rate (HFR) content.