Google Assistant Can Now Hold on Lengthy Calls for You

Oct. 1, 2020

Nobody likes to hear those boring tunes or announcements while patiently waiting for a customer care executive to resolve their issues — especially during these days due to all of the lockdown restrictions and delivery woes. Fortunately, Google knows this is a hassle and hasaddeda nifty new feature to Google Assistant that helps wait out your lengthy phone calls.

Dubbed ‘Hold for Me,’ the feature makes use of Google Assistant to detect whether a real person is on the line or you are hearing a pre-recorded message at the other end. Google Assistant will on hold in your place if latter’s the case. Once it detects that the person is ready to speak with you, the Assistant will thennotify you with a sound, vibration, and a prompt on your screen. This way, you could (conveniently) go back to whatever you were doing before the call and pick up right when the customer support representative is ready.Image: Google

According to Google, the new Hold for Me feature will beavailable in early preview on Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a (5G) in the U.S. To get started, you should open the Phone app, tap on Settings, and toggle ‘Hold for Me’. The software giant hopes to expand the feature to more users over the coming months.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.