Google Assistant / ML Automation

Duplex on the Web

Led from conception to successful launch. Automating web browsing using ML to reduce friction for everyday tasks—buying movie tickets, renting a car, quick online shopping.

Role Senior Designer, Lead
Timeline 2018-2019
Location Google Zurich
Team Google Assistant

Simple tasks remain cumbersome on the mobile web. Buying movie tickets, renting a car, or quick online shopping—these should be trivial but require navigating multiple pages, pinch-and-zoom form filling, and manual data entry across fragmented checkout flows.

Led design from initial conception through successful first launch. Produced long-term vision and worked directly with ML teams to define what the system could reliably automate while maintaining user control and transparency.

Designed Assistant-mediated fulfillment through automated actions on the web. The system pulls information from Gmail (upcoming trips, reservations) and Chrome autofill to complete tasks with minimal user input. Users see what Duplex is doing and can intervene at any point.

Beyond Voice to Visual Automation

Duplex started as phone-based AI making restaurant reservations. Web automation required entirely different paradigms—visual progress indicators, interactive seat selection, step-by-step confirmation flows. The challenge was making ML-powered automation feel controllable rather than opaque.

Movies
Ticket Purchasing
Automated seat selection, showtime picking, and checkout across AMC, Fandango, and partner theaters
Travel
Car Rentals
Pull trip details from Gmail, auto-fill preferences from previous rentals, complete booking
Shopping
Quick Checkout
Streamlined e-commerce flows with saved payment methods and address autofill

Announced at Google I/O 2019 and rolled out as "Assistant in Chrome" on Android. Expanded to include automated password changes for compromised accounts, flight check-in, and discount finding for e-commerce.

Watch the I/O demo →