Google has been working for quite some time on a new “Your People” page for Google Assistant’s settings that allows you to change details about how Assistant sees and names your important contacts, and now that new page is live on all versions of the Google App.
On this newly released settings page, you’ll find your Family Link group, if you happen to have one, along with space to add any other important contacts and arrange them as you see fit.
While you can’t change things like their nicknames, home addresses, and the like, you can change their birthday and their relation to you.
In the latter regard, there are upwards of 20 options to cover all your possible bases, and for people with duplicate family members, duplicate entries are allowed. It should be noted, however, that in-laws are a prominent set of omissions. Step-parents made the list, as did the obvious ones like siblings, spouses, grandparents, and so on.
To reach the new page, simply go into your Assistant settings, which can be done by voice or through the Google App, then tap on “Your People”.
It should be noted that all of this has been manageable in the past, but the most prominent way to do so has historically been through voice commands.
This new page gathers all of these important contacts in one place and adds an easily managed visual aspect, making it a snap to let Assistant know who’s who to you. The possible relation types even include “none” and “other”.
It is worth noting that the vast amount of possible relations does not mean that you get more members in your Google family group; you can still only reap the benefits of Family Link, such as device control and sharing of the Google Play Family Library, with up to three other users, meaning that larger families are still out of luck.
Using the settings on this page, as with the old page and with voice commands, confers no other benefits than having Assistant know who they are, allowing you to use voice commands such as “Call my wife” or “Text Dad to tell him we’re out of milk”.
This ground-up revamp has apparently been in the works for quite some time, and has been rolled out on a testing basis and piece by piece in the past. Having full availability on all devices means a more unified interface, as is always the case with Google products, and more ease when it comes to managing your family and other groups on Google.
Any changes you make on this page will follow you across all Assistant-enabled devices, which means that marking Jane Doe as your mother on your phone or laptop will also allow you to use your Google Home or Pixel Buds to ask her the family recipe for pineapple upside-down cake.
If you don’t see the changes just yet, try updating your Google app if it’s not up to date, or rebooting your device to get the app to restart and put the changes into effect.