Google Assistant is one of the greatest softwares ever created to help people with their daily tasks related to a device usage like making calls, sending a text or setting an alarm. Not so long ago, it was something exclusive for some smartphones and now it is an excellent tool for many Android users -even iPhone users- to get things done easier.

In the last years, Google has made clear their intentions to improve Artificial Intelligence on devices and look for new ways on how users can benefit from this interaction, by adding better features to their voice-powered assistant.  

With that in mind, we’d like to tell you about some of these great “How can I help?” features that Google assistant offers to Android users.

Google Assistant to read you the news

Google Assistant can help you stay updated with the latest news by saying “Play the News”. Then, a list of different news sources will be shown on your screen for you to hear. You can also add other sources of topics of your choice by going into the News section of the Settings menu in the Google app.

Another way Google Assistant reads you the news is when you say “Good Morning” as this is one of the pre-loaded routine commands. After telling you about that day´s forecasted weather, it will play the most relevant news of the day and of topics you are interested in.   

Translate into other languages

The assistant is linked with Google Translate, naturally. So, it is easy to ask for a translation from one language to another. If you want to know how to say something specific while being in a foreign country, you can read it and hear it with the help of Google Assistant.

In this matter, let’s remember Google Assistant is expected to support more than 30 languages and be available in 80 countries by the end of this year.

Set reminders

Besides allowing you set an alarm by a voice command, you can use Google Assistant to make entire lists that will be allocated in the Google Keep app. If you want to add something to those lists later, you can do it too.

More surprisingly, it is the location-based reminder. So, if you need to be reminded to buy juice or milk when you get to a grocery store, Assistant can help you with that as well.

You can locate your home or workplace in the settings menu of your Google app to set specific reminders you need of those sites whenever you get there.

You might also like to read How is Google making use of AI to improve the Android Experience.

Open apps, Place a pickup order and Play music & videos

Google Assistant works with many of your favorite apps. Of course, you can use it to tell it to open any app you want, but you can also use it to play and specific song on Spotify or watch a movie on Netflix.

Do you want to search for a recipe on Youtube? Do you need to ask for an Uber? Do you wish to place a coffee, donuts or pizza order? Google Assistant can help you with those tasks too. You see, your daily tasks done easier and faster.

By the way, if you want to find out the name of an unknown song you are hearing, ask for it and you´ll have your answer in just a few seconds.

Wrapping up

There are a lot more features coming to Google Assistant soon. New voices are going to be added, Continued conversations are going to make the interaction more fluent and the good manners implementation is going to remind kids to ask for things nicely.

As we´ve seen in the last couple of years and, mainly, some months ago at Google I/O, great efforts are being made to improve Google Assistant features and Artificial Intelligence for Android app development.   

What do you think about these features? What other things would you like Google Assistant could help you with?