Google Assistant now supports 'continued conversations': How it works

The feature was announced at Google I/O as an optional setting, which lets user have a natural back-and-forth conversation with the Assistant without repeating 'Hey Google' for each follow-up request

Search engine giant Google on June 22 announced that it has rolled out a 'continued conversations' feature update for its digital Assistant, which powers the company’s smart speakers such as Google Home, Home mini and Home Max. The update changes the way Google Assistant interacts with users, and now supports natural conversations.

Users of Google Assistant would agree that saying ‘Hey Google’ or ‘Ok Google’ every time before commanding the digital assistant hampers its overall utility. The activation key words not only sounds strange when used frequently in a conversation, but also make it sound unnatural. Now, with the continued conversations feature, users will be able to converse with the Google Assistant by using these key words just once to initiate the conversation, and continue the natural course of conversation without using them for any subsequent commands.

The continued conversation feature was announced at Google I/O as an optional setting, which lets the user have a natural back-and-forth conversation with the Assistant without repeating ‘Hey Google’ for each follow-up request. Starting today, the new feature has been rolled out as an update, and users, after updating the eligible device, can turn it on by going to Settings -- Preferences -- Continued Conversation and hitting the toggle.

With continued conversation turned on, you can ask the Assistant a question followed by any other command such as setting a reminder, or adding something to your shopping list, without having to say ‘Hey Google’ each time. You can say 'thank you' or 'stop' once you are done, or the conversation will end once the Assistant recognises that you are no longer talking to it.