Two months after rolling out its digital assistant, Google is opening its doors to outside developers to help the company chase rivals, particularly Amazon.com Inc., in a critical technology race.
On Thursday, the Alphabet Inc. unit launched a system for developers to build chatbots that work with Google Assistant, its voice-based virtual helper. The tools, called Conversation Actions, will let companies and other third parties interact with Google users by building bots that answer questions and, eventually, sell and book things through voice controls.
