Google AI will invade your home soon through Google Assistant and Google Home, the software and hardware (respectively) that could soon help run your life.

Google has been using artificial intelligence for speech to text search, Google Now, and other important parts of its core software. Now at Google's developers conference, I/O 2016, those AI elements are coming together in a two-pronged attack on Amazon's Alexa AI-powered Echo device. The company calls the software Google Assistant and the hardware Google Home.

Google Assistant

Google already has a widely-used AI platform, known as Google Now, Google Voice Search, and elements of the Google "knowledge grid" that the company has been building over the past several years.

Now at Google I/O 2016, the company unveiled the next step: Google Assistant.

"We think of it as a conversational assistant, having an ongoing two-way dialogue with Google," said the company's CEO Sundar Pichai during the I/O 2016 keynote on Wednesday. "We want to get things done in the real world. Think of this as building each user his own individual Google."

If it sounds similar to Google Now and Voice Search, that's because it's built on the same principles. But Google Assistant is going to be more of a direct shot at other personality-based AI assistants, expanding beyond basic voice search and predictive panels of information displayed on your smartphone, into an ongoing, chat-based model that remembers context.

During the presentation, Pichai showed off how Google Assistant could remember previous input or reminders and then take related commands or questions, without the user needing to remind the software of what exactly they're talking about. Think of it as the Google Now voice platform, upgraded to work through natural conversation.

Google Home

The other new thing about Google Assistant is that it's going to expand beyond Google Now's mostly smartphone-based hardware to work pretty much anywhere.

But the first new place Google Assistant will show up is a piece of hardware called Google Home. An obvious reaction to Amazon's Echo, which is a cylindrical connected smart-mic-and-speaker, powered by the retail giant's Alexa AI, Google Home will be Google's standalone version.

It looks a little like a sleek technological desktop votive oil lamp, but what matters is the two-way conversations it can have with users through Google Assistant.

As Forbes reported, Google promises Home will work as a "controller for the home," eventually integrating with smart devices throughout your daily life like thermostats, lights, and the Chromecast, along with a host of software services including Spotify, Uber, GrubHub, OpenTable, and ticketmaster.

However, unlike Amazon, Google hasn't opened its Home platform up to any and every third party developer that's interested. On the plus side, also unlike Amazon's home-based AI hub Echo, Google Home will come with a number of design customization options to match your particular style of décor.

Prices haven't been revealed yet, but if Google Home is going to be competitive with its only major rival, it'll have to retail at around $200 or lower.