At I/O 2018, Google announced launched a host of new Google Assistant features like six new voices, Multiple Actions, and Custom Routines. Many of the features are already live and have rolled out at various points in time since I/O 2018. Today, the Google Home will no longer require that you repeat a hotword for every command thanks to Continued Conversation. It is a significant step towards making interactions with virtual assistants sound natural. According to their blog post:
For the Google Assistant to have a natural conversation, it should be able to understand when it’s being spoken to and should be capable of responding to several requests during an interaction. We’re taking another step forward in making your interactions with the Google Assistant more natural with Continued Conversation, available starting today on Google Home, Google Home Mini and Google Home Max.
Continued Conversation is off by default, so you’ll need to dig into the Assistant settings to enable it. Go to Settings Preferences Continued Conversation to turn it on. This setting will apply to all Google Home speakers linked to your Google account. Continued Conversation keeps the speaker active for up to eight seconds after completing an action. You can begin speaking during that time to start another command without saying “Hey Google.” or “Ok Google.” It will automatically detect when you’re no longer talking, but users can manually have the speaker stop listening by saying “thank you” or “stop.”
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Available on the Google Home, Google Home Mini, and Google Home Max, it is rolling out starting today for Assistant accounts and devices set to en-US or English (US). We can expect support for more languages to be added in the next few months. We’re not far from the day when we can hold a prolonged conversation with a digital assistant. After a point, we might even be able to as the Google Assistant a solution for our never-ending existential angst. Only time will tell.
Source: Google
