Chatting With The Google Assistant Just Got A Lot More Natural
Conversations with the Google Assistant will involve less "Hey Google" and more chat moving forward, with one of the big features previewed at I/O 2018 arriving on smart speakers today. Continued Conversation allows users to have multi-part interactions with the voice-driven AI, without having to say the "Hey Google" or "Ok Google" trigger each time.
The Assistant can already handle queries that span multiple requests. For instance, if you asked your Google Home for the weather forecast for the day, after getting that report you can follow up by asking "What about tomorrow?" The Assistant remembers that you were talking about the weather, and so understands the context of that second question.
However, it also requires triggering with the wake-word each time. Continued Conversation, which Google detailed at its I/O developer conference a few weeks back, strips out the duplicated wake-words. While you'll still need to say "Ok Google" or "Hey Google" the first time, the Assistant will keep listening after making its response in case you have a follow-up question or need clarification.
Initially it'll be available on the Google Home, Google Home Mini, and Google Home Max. As you'd hope for something which affects the microphone's behavior, Google is making Continued Conversation optional. It's also turned off by default: you'll be able to turn it on by heading into the Google Assistant app, choosing Settings > Preferences > Continued Conversation, and tapping the toggle.
According to Google, the ability to have ongoing conversations with the Assistant without punctuating them with the wake-word each time has been one of its top requests from users. It's part of a group of new features aiming to make the AI more useful overall. That includes the ability to ask for multiple things at once, such as getting weather reports from two locations with just one question.
It also looked at ways to make the Assistant more family-friendly. "Pretty Please" is launching later in 2018, and will encourage people to use "please" and "thank you" when they interact with the smart speaker. That, Google says, is something families hoping to promote politeness in their kids should appreciate.
Continued Conversation is rolling out from today. As always, it's likely to be a staggered deployment, so you might not see the option showing up in your settings app from the get-go.