Google Assistant gets a new call sign

These days, AI-based voice assistants are all the hype and they have been coming in various shapes and sizes — from separate smart speakers to your smartphones. If you are an Android user, you have your humble Google Assistant at your disposal, always ready to provide you all the information you need on a particular subject. However, as informative Assistant can be, it really becomes a bit awkward to speak the ‘Ok Google’ hotword in the public, especially when all Apple users need to say is ‘Hey Siri.’ Not anymore though.

Google is rolling out an update slowly to all Android smartphone around the world that will let users use the ‘Hey Google’ hotword alongside the ‘Ok Google’ hotword. This new hotword has already been a part of the Google Home smart speaker for some time but is slowly rolling to a batch of smartphones.

Of course, Assistant will need to you to train it with the new hotword as you need to do while signing into a new Android smartphone for the first time. Once you are done with the setup, you can also summon your Google Assistant in very cool and fashionable way that Apple or even Microsoft users have been doing until now. However, if you still prefer the more machine-like ‘Ok Google’, you will still be able to summon the Assistant with that hotword. The update is slowly rolling out to Android devices across the world and if you haven’t received it yet, keep checking for the updated Google app from the PlayStore.

(source)