Google Assistant will soon start allowing payments as numerous owners of the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL are reporting they’re now seeing the Payments option in the Settings menu of their Google app. The rollout reportedly started on Wednesday evening through a server-side update seeing how the 6.13 beta version of the Google app didn’t show the same feature a day prior. In any case, if you own the Google Pixel or the Google Pixel XL, you can check whether you’ve received the option by opening your Google app, navigating to its Settings menu and tapping the Payments option. This course of action will start a tutorial explaining how you can set up your payments and delivery info for all kinds of purchases. Not surprisingly, the app will ask you to agree to Google Payments Terms of Service (ToS), as well as Google Express ToS. After that is said and done, you’ll be able to set up your account with your credit card information and an address.
After the initial setup is complete, the app will allow you to select shared devices which can access the information you’ve just entered to make purchases. Another menu even features a toggle for enabling and disabling Google Assistant payments. Despite this new addition, it seems that users are still unable to utilize the new feature and actually make payments through Google Assistant, presumably because third-party developers are yet to start supporting the function. Nonetheless, this rollout implies that the feature may be just around the corner. First screenshots of the newly uncovered functionality can be seen in the gallery below.
The Mountain View-based tech giant hinted at this feature in late 2016, and a previous beta release of the Google app suggested that the company already started working on supporting mobile payments through Google Assistant in January. Apart from this functionality, Google Assistant will likely be updated with more useful features in the near future seeing how Google will want to improve its digital companion before more competition hits the market this spring. Most notably, Samsung is heavily rumored to debut its very own digital assistant with the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus.
