Google Assistant is already a very useful tool in many respects but today it just got better, thanks to a new trick up its sleeve called Hold For Me.
Google Duplex, a feature of Google Assistant dedicated to managing different parts of your voice calls, can now use Hold For Me just how you’re imagining. To wait on hold for you. Nobody likes waiting on hold.
So now you can let Google Assistant do it for you. Gone are the days where you need to sit there tethered to your phone waiting for that person on the other end of the line to come back.
Google Assistant will only use Hold For Me with toll-free numbers
Based on the details on Google’s support page for the new feature, it only works with toll-free numbers. That means 1-800 numbers and the like.
It’s also only available on the Pixel 5 and the Pixel 4a 5G. Because the newest version of the phone app is required and only these two phones will have it. For now at least.
Eventually Google will likely update the older Pixel devices to support this feature too. But right now there’s no mention of any sort of time frame. Which means you’re stuck listening to hold music for the foreseeable future unless you get one of Google’s two new phones.
In addition to those requirements, Hold For Me needs to be enabled with each and every phone call. It’s also a setting which you can turn on or off. Depending on whether you want to use it or not. So if you don’t, you can just leave the setting off to begin with.
If you’re placed on hold, and the feature takes over, it will also notify you once someone comes back on the line. Nifty right?
You can’t play music while the feature is turned on
Hold For Me is bound to make waiting on calls ten times better. If for nothing else, because it will free you from having to listen to the hold music.
That doesn’t mean you can do things like stream music to pass the time. The support page also notes that while Hold For Me is active, you can’t play music of your own on the device. It isn’t just music either.
Playing any other audio at all while Hold For Me is active isn’t possible. And if you try to play other audio it’s likely that Hold For Me will either disable itself, or the other audio simply won’t work.
Hold For Me is also only available in English and in the US right now. However, expect it to support other languages and regions in the future.