Issa Rae, actress, writer, director, producer and web series creator is set to be one of the new voices of Google Assistant celebrity edition, along with singer/songwriter John Legend, CNN reported.

Who is Issa Rae?

Issa was born in Los Angels, California on 12th January 1985. Issa majored in African and African American studies at Stanford University, during her university days she wrote and directed some plays for the university. She is currently signed to two talent management companies, ‘United Talent Agency’ and ‘3 Arts Entertainment’.

Issa Rae first rose to fame while she was working on her YouTube web series called ‘Awkward Black Girl’.

The show only lasted for two seasons but all of the episodes of the web series are still available on YouTube, it was first aired on 3rd February 2011 to 28th February 2013.

She also starred and co-wrote a television show called “Insecure”. She was nominated for two Golden Globe awards, the ‘Best Actress-Television Series Musical or Comedy’ and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for ‘Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series’.

Issa is also a well-acclaimed author, she wrote her first book titled “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl”, which was released in 2015 and became a New York Times bestseller. The actress is also an advocate and uses her platform to highlight important issues pertaining to police violence and brutality against African-Americans in the United States.

When the shooting of Alton Sterling happened on 5th July 2016, she created a fundraiser called ‘Sterling Family Trust’ the money that was raised was given to the 'Sterling family'.

Celebrity Google Assistant

Google first announced that they would be introducing a new feature to their Google Assistant during the ‘Google I/O (Innovation in the Open)’ conference last year which was held between 8th to 10th of May.

The ‘Google I/O’ is a developer festival in which developers from around the world talk and discuss the new innovations of Google's latest products.

One of the most talked-about features that were introduced last year at the conference was the new celebrity feature for Google Assistant initially, Google Assistant has 5 voices and different language options are also available.

Google announced that they will be featuring John Legend’s voice as the first celebrity for Google Assistant last May during their 'Google I/O' conference, and on 3rd April 2019, John's voice was featured in Google Assistant. Variety reported. To switch to the singer's voice say "okay google talk like a legend", the singer will be able to answer questions about the weather or he can sing to you 'Happy Birthday'. As of now this feature is only available for a limited time and only in the United States. There are no further discussions from Google as to whether this feature will be released in other countries or languages.

Each celebrity that will be featured for Google assistant will have to go to a recording studio and record their voice scripts, which then will be transcribed into Google’s speech synthesis model called WaveNet.

Issa Rae newest celebrity voice for Google Assistant

Issa Rae is one of the new voices of Google Assistant, she is joined by John Legend, the first celebrity to be featured in this edition. Fans of the actress will now be able to ask questions, just like any of the other Google Assistant voices available already.

Issa shared some of her personal experiences going through everything with the recording process in the studio, as well as her excitement for this project.

In order to switch to Issa's voice in Google assistant just say "hey google, talk like Issa" or go to the assistant settings on your ios or Android phone.