The Google Assistant is an intelligent digital assistant capable of understanding human voice and responding to commands or questions. It’s similar to Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Amazon’s Alexa all within easy reach, responding to questions and voice commands but each with their own style and flavor. While the Google Assistant shares some features with previous assistants, the Google version is more talkative, meaning the user can ask it more if they want more information about a particular search or question.
G.Assistant launched in May 2016 as part of the Allo instant messaging app. He soon made the leap to Google Pixel phones that were available for a while, and then became free to download for anyone using Android 5 Lollipop and later.
What does the Google Assistant do
Among what the Google Assistant offers is asking it about restaurants near the user, then choosing from them what he wants specifically, such as a Chinese or Italian restaurant. Various questions can be directed to it like any search engine, including information about the capital of a country, the weather of a city or country, movie showtimes, train schedules, and more.
They can also be asked to do things like remind or alert, send messages, or give directions. In the case of using Google Home, the person can request to play certain music or turn on the lighting. They can also book a table for lunch using an app like OpenTable.
But when the Google Assistant responds without entering it or consuming an excessive level of battery, the same simple steps above can be used to stop it OK Google.
Like other Google products, Google Assistant will learn from your actions and base its responses on your previous actions, called smart responses Example: G.Assistant predicts the answer to a text sent by a spouse about the quality of lunch or desire to watch a movie by suggesting related searches or ready answers such as “ I do not know”.
Even if you have a question offline, you can still talk to G.Assistant and it will save and answer your query as soon as a wireless network is available.
If you’re on the road and come across something you don’t recognize; you can take a picture of it and ask G.Assistant what it is or what it’s made of using Flip Image Search, and it can even read QR codes.
Reverse image search is a search engine technology that takes an image file as an input query and returns results related to the image. Among the search engines that use this technology (besides Google) is TinEye, and Reddit.
Is Google Assistant available on your device ?
If you are an Android device user, you can invoke the Google Assistant by pressing and holding the Home button. The Google Assistant will appear, and it’s off your phone and ready to go.
If it’s already on the device but not enabled, it will ask you to enable it when you tap and hold Home.
Some Android devices require the G.Assistant to work on its own.
And you can check the phone to make sure that the installation is present, in case you do not see it when you press and hold Home.
For iOS, G.Assistant can be accessed if the app is installed. As for Google Home devices, the app is in its original form.
How to get Google Assistant
When the Google Assistant is not on the device, it can be easily obtained:
- For Android users : The Google Assistant app is downloaded from the Play Store, and to activate it, you must also update the main Google app on the device; The phone version must be Android 5 Lollipop and later, and the tablet must be Android 6 Marshmallow and later. Memory capacity should not be less than 1.4 GB and 720p screen. Note that this application is not needed if it is out of the device.
- iPhones : The application is downloaded from the App Store, and iOS 9.1 and later is required.
How to use the G.Assistant
- On compatible Android devices ; Google Assistant is launched by either long pressing the home menu button or saying Hi Google or Okay Google, only when you open the conversation with Assistant for the first time. Improvements to the original assistant include a feature that allows the user to ask multiple questions in the same request. When the interaction is over, say Hi Google or Okay Google again to start another session. You can have a conversation with him via chat or voice.
- On an iPhone or iPad; you’ll need to open the Google Assistant app and say OK Google or tap on the little phone icon.
When you don’t want to use your voice, you can write a question. Touch the keyboard button to enter text into the Google Assistant, and it will only respond if you speak.
The funny thing is that the app understands the context of the text as it should; for example if you ask when an actor was born? Then I asked, what are his most famous films? Google knows that the distraction belongs to the actor.
You can also ask him about anything you want even after completing it; and he will guide you by providing you with many applications and services.
Activate Google Assistant
Google Assistant doesn’t require any physical tuning to get it started. But you can have some options to customize to your liking.
Open the Google app, click the “Menu” button, then “Settings”, then click “Settings” again under the Google Assistant header. From it, you can adjust several settings, some of which are important, such as:
- Personal Information : Add home and work address to data traffic alerts. Nickname settings can also be used to change how Assistant pronounces your name.
- Voice Match: identifies Assistant with your voice to respond more reliably.
- Music : You can set your favorite music.
- Routines : Allows you to set up groups of commands that run simultaneously.
- Shortcuts : Create specific commands for different tasks.
How to turn off G.Assistant
Google Assistant can be disabled if you are not using the feature or are concerned about listening to Google
Open the Google app; then click on the “Menu” button and then choose Settings, then find the Google Assistant header and click Settings under it.
On the results page; click on the name of your device from the list of “Devices” and from the drop-down bar, disable G.Assistant to turn off the feature.
After completing the command, you will be asked if you want to restart Google Assistant if you press the Home button; and you can also follow these steps to turn the feature back on.
If you tap Settings under Google Assistant, the phone will ask if you want to use it again.
