“Sorry, I don’t have the answer to that question.” Alexa can’t even answer a simple question? Try installing the unofficial Ask Google skill to your Amazon Echo or Echo Dot. Now you can ask Alexa to ask Google any kind of questions.

Alexa, ask Google how do you know when a pineapple is ripe?

“The butt of the pineapple is where it should be most fragrant, so put your nose there… If it smells sweet, like pineapple juice, it is ripe.”

The Ask Google skill is one of the best Alexa skill you can install. Now you can get Google answers from your Alexa device! Unfortunately, the skill is not available in the Skills store because it is a conflict of interest for Google since they have their own competing device. But luckily, we can manually install the skill to our device for free.

This skill was created by tartan_guru. The latest version along with release notes around the current functionality and basic fault finding can be found here:

https://github.com/tartanguru/alexa-google-search

An update to the Ask Google skill was released on January 22nd. Read about the changes here. Need to update your skill? Read our guide here.

Check out our newest guide, how to install Google Assistant to your Alexa device here.

UPDATE: The whole process has changed. There are new layouts and instructions. I am in the process of revamping the entire tutorial with all new screenshots. However, I suggest you install the Google Assistant skill instead. It’s better, has more features, and it is now free. Check out the updated tutorial here







How-to Install Ask Google Skill to Echo/Echo Dot

1. Create a personal AWS account here using the same email address used to register your Echo device.

2. You will need to enter a credit card even though we will be using a free plan.

3. In the Support Plan page, select the Basic plan.

4. Once your account is created, go here and sign into your account.

5. Click on the region drop-down next to your name on the top-right corner and select “US East (N. Virginia)” if you live in the US or “EU (Ireland)” if you live in the UK. These are the only two regions that support Alexa.

6. Now click on Services on the top-left corner and go to Lambda under the Compute section.

7. Click on the Get Started Now button or Create function to create a Lambda function.

8. Click Author from scratch.

9. Name the function “google”, select Create new role from template(s) for the role, name the role “lambda_basic_execution” (or select Choose an existing role and lambda_basic_execution if the role already exists), and press Create function.

10. Under Add triggers, select Alexa Skills Kit and press Add.

11. Click on “google” to return to the configuration settings.

12. Under Function code, select Upload a .ZIP file for Code entry type and upload the Archive.zip file. You can download it here (click Clone or download > Download ZIP). Unzip the downloaded file and the Archive.zip file will be located in the src folder.

You can leave the rest of the settings as default. The Runtime should be “Node.js 6.10“.

13. Under Basic settings, enter “google” for the Description and change Timeout to 10 seconds.

14. This is what the completed Configuration page should look like. Press Save on the top of the page.

You may receive an error message, “The deployment package of your Lambda function “google” is too large to enable inline code editing. However, you can still invoke your function right now.” This is fine.

15. Copy the ARN code on the top-right corner. It should look something like “arn:aws:lambda:us-east-#:############:function:google“. We will need this later.

16. Now create a free Amazon Developer account here.

17. Under the Payments page, answer No for both questions.

18. Sign into your account here and go to the Alexa tab.

19. Click the Get Started button under Alexa Skills Kit.

20. Click Add a New Skill.

21. Set the Skill Type to Custom Interaction Model, select the correct language (US, UK, and German options available), name the Name and Invocation Name field “google“, and hit Next.

22. Copy and paste the code below into the Intent Schema box:

{ "intents": [ { "intent": "SearchIntent", "slots": [ { "name": "search", "type": "SEARCH" } ] }, { "intent": "AMAZON.StopIntent" } ] }

23. Enter SEARCH as the Enter Type and copy and paste the following text into the Enter Values box:

who is the queen why is the sky blue how old become dogs where is hamburg what is christmas when is easter what are mice what does bleach do can you eat grass is there a god are bats black whats the biggest planet can dolphins swim did giraffes go extinct do porcupines sleep whats two plus two will bees be killed could a woodchuck chuck wood could flamingos fly are oceans wet are trees big does korea have nukes should you drink milk should trucks smoke capital of new york inventor of television what time does costco close how far away is the moon how many oceans are there who are the presidents children why do stars suddenly appear where are the nearest campsites

24. Press Add.

25. Now copy and paste the following code to the Sample Utterances box:

SearchIntent {search}

26. Press Next.

27. Select AWS Lambda ARN (Amazon Resource Name) for the Service Endpoint Type and paste your ARN code (from step 17) into the Default field.

28. Select No for the Account Linking question and hit Next.

29. You will now be in the Test stage. You’re done!

You will find the google skill in the Alexa app under Skills > Your Skills.

To use the skill, simply call Alexa followed by the phrase “ask Google“.

Example,

“Alexa, ask Google how many Grammys has Drake won?”

You will now be able to ask Alexa even more trivia questions than before! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave it below and we will try to answer them quickly.





