Google is beginning to take the next steps for adding Google Assistant on Chrome OS, which means those with Chromebooks and other Chrome OS machines will soon be able to interact with Google Assistant for any number of tasks and queries. While the feature isn’t quite available yet, it’s now been reported that Google is starting the process to remove the currently available voice interaction; the OK Google hotword command. The removal of this feature indicates that Google is making room for Google Assistant, however there is no clear visibility of Google Assistant yet and there wasn’t a mention of how long it would actually be before it arrives.
As for the OK Google hotword command, a recent Chromium Gerrit makes note of deprecation for this voice interaction. Eventually, Chrome OS device users will end up getting notifications telling them that the hotword is being removed from the system. Furthermore, once the transition truly begins Google Assistant will be integrated with Chrome OS as an initial setup feature, meaning new users upon setting up a Chromebook for the first time will see an option to get Google Assistant up and running, much like you would on devices like the Pixel and Pixel XL.
This change should end up surfacing for users during the first time they power on the device, but it seems likely that it will also show up for existing Chrome OS device users upon booting the device for the first time after an update that enables Google Assistant, and if that’s the case then no user should end up having to dig around for the feature to enable it like they did with the current OK Google hotword command, which has been present in Chrome OS for a while but had to be turned on and configured from the settings menu. It’s not clear what all users will be able to do with Google Assistant on Chromebooks, but with Android app support continually being added to more devices, there’s a possibility that it could integrate with the use of apps, say for launching them just by voice. Google is also looking to add a Google Assistant key on the keyboards of newer Chromebooks, though at this time there are no currently available machines which have this new physical key.