If you’re rocking a more modern Android smartphone, chances are you have access to Google’s AI assistant. Google Assistant was originally launched back in May 2016, and since then, it has been improved immensely, and it can be quite useful in your everyday life. Google is not forcing you to use Google Assistant on your Android handset, but if you opt to do so, you can become more efficient in some areas, and here we’ll discuss that possibility by listing the ways in which Google Assistant can help you in your everyday life.
A number of Android device owners probably write notes on their phone on a regularly basis. If you need to take down a note, and your hands are busy or you just don’t feel like typing it down, Google Assistant can do that for you. All you have to do is fire up the Assistant, and say “note to self”, and say whatever you want to write down. You will be able to choose a Google Assistant-compatible app for note-taking the first time you use this feature, and there are quite a few out there, including Google Keep, Evernote, OneNote, and so on. If you’re an avid user of a calendar app on your smartphone, well, Google Assistant can help you in this regard as well, as it can check your calendar for you, or you can instruct it to set up new appointments in your calendar. For example, you can check when is your next appointment, by asking Google Assistant just that, or you can check when is your doctor’s appointment coming up. Much like the note-taking feature, this can be quite useful if your hands are busy, you’re driving, or just otherwise preoccupied.
Google Assistant can also fire up specific apps, or you can get it to open up a specific website for you. That’s not all, though, Google Assistant is actually capable of searching for files within specific apps, so you can basically tell it to locate a specific file in Google Drive, or perhaps you’d like to buy something off of Amazon? In this instance, simply say “search for the Galaxy S9 on Amazon.” On top of that, you can get Google Assistant to lower volume, for example, so if you’re listening to something, and cooking at the same time, simply call upon the Google Assistant, and tell it to “set the volume to 30 percent,”. You can also use Google Assistant to toggle Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Auto Rotation on and off, or brighten / dim your screen.
Have you ever been driving and having the need to text a friend, coworker or a family member? Well, we all know that texting and driving is a bad idea, and that’s where Google Assistant comes in. Take the phone out of your pocket, position it somewhere safe and where the phone’s microphone is not covered. At that point, call upon the Google Assistant, and simply say “text”, followed by the contact’s name, and your message. You can do something similar for calls as well by giving your Google Assistant the “call” instruction, followed by the contact’s name. Now, if you’re driving, chances are you’ll want to use a speakerphone (presuming you don’t have a Bluetooth earpiece at hand), so follow the contacts name with “on speakerphone” command, and Google Assistant will do the rest for you. Speaking of messages, Google Assistant can also read your messages to you, just instruct it by saying “Read me my messages,” and the Assistant will read you your most recent texts, and offer to read more. You can do something similar for Gmail as well, in case you were wondering.
You can also get the Google Assistant to book you a flight, tell you a joke, and a lot more, but we just wanted to emphasize some uses of the Assistant that can come in handy on a daily basis. Google Assistant is available on a global scale, well, in most countries, but the thing is, it’s most useful in the US, as all of its features that have been released to date are available in the US, basically. Google Assistant is quite limited in some countries, but everything that we’ve listed in this article should be available wherever the Google Assistant is. Google is constantly making Google Assistant more useful, and one of the most recent developments for the Assistant is Google Duplex.