42 ways Google Assistant can make you more efficient on Android

Google Assistant has some genuinely useful productivity tools for professionals — and it's up to yous to learn how to use them.

Contributing Editor, Computerworld |

Table of Contents
  • Agenda and routines
  • Reminders and notes
  • Letters and advice
  • Phone functions and settings
  • Location and travel
  • News and electric current events
  • Other useful odds and ends

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Google Banana is artificial intelligence at your fingertips, especially on Android — but sometimes, it can exist tough to know what to enquire an omniscient robot to do.

I'm here to assist. I've talked to my Android telephone more than I'd care to admit (even before it did annihilation in response — boy, were those awkward times), and I've put together the ultimate guide to Google Assistant's most useful productivity-oriented possibilities.

So clear your throat, grab your favorite Android device, and get ready to brand that silky-voiced virtual companion of yours more helpful than e'er.

Google Assistant is natively available on any reasonably current Android phone. So long equally you've enabled Vocalisation Lucifer in your system settings (and you can search for the phrase "Voice Match" within your settings if you aren't certain), you tin can admission information technology anytime only by proverb Hey, Google while your phone is in earshot.

Depending on your device and Android version , yous may likewise be able to summon Assistant by sliding your finger up diagonally from either of your screen's lower corners or past pressing and holding your Home push button, on older Android devices . Y'all can also create a regular home screen shortcut to Banana by downloading the standalone Banana app , which is essentially simply an easy-access icon for the service that's already there and waiting.

Agenda and routines

1. Peek at your agenda for any day past asking Assistant variations on these questions:

  • When's my next appointment?
  • Prove me my appointments for Tuesday afternoon.
  • What's on my calendar for side by side Monday?
  • What/when/where is my next event?
  • What's my outset event tomorrow?
  • When's my next haircut appointment?

2. Create new calendar events on the fly by telling Assistant add to my calendar or brand an appointment followed by the event's name, date, time, and optionally fifty-fifty location. For instance, yous could say something similar Add together to my agenda, project meeting on June 12th at eleven a.thou. — or Brand an date for a lunch coming together with Bipsy and Blerp Friday at apex at Del Taco.

three. Become a broader overview of your day by activating Assistant and maxim skilful morning. That'll cause your Assistant to give you lot a summary of the conditions for your current area along with a rundown of any reminders and appointments on your agenda — and, if you want, an overview of your commute and a quick audio broadcast of the news from whatsoever sources y'all adopt. You can even take Assistant automatically take your phone off silent, prepare your phone's media volume to a specific level, and adjust whatsoever connected devices in your home or office equally part of the process.

To configure all of the options, burn up Assistant and say Assistant routines, then tap the gear-shaped icon next to the word "Routines" and tap the line labeled "Good morning."

01 google assistant android routines JR Raphael/IDG

You can edit Banana's morning routine to include all sorts of different on-demand actions and adjustments.

4. In that same department of the Assistant settings, you can configure separate routines that occur whenever yous utter any phrases you want — or even at specific set times of day or the second you dismiss certain preset alarms in the morn. Y'all can even create day-long Banana routines that incorporate multiple actions at multiple times.

5. Exist sure to expect, too, for the preset routines for "Commuting to work" and "Commuting home." Provided you lot're commuting into an bodily outside-of-the-home workplace these days, those are handy places to fix processes in which Banana can do things like update you on the traffic or your agenda; set your phone'due south media volume to a certain level and play music, news, or a podcast; transport a predefined message to a specific person or read your unread texts aloud; and even circulate a bulletin (similar "On my fashion home" or "Arriving at the office in 20 minutes") to any Assistant-enabled speakers in your home or part every bit presently as yous indicate yous're en route.

Reminders and notes

6. One of Assistant's nearly useful tools is its power to have and manage context-sensitive reminders. You tin can fix a reminder for a specific time and day — Remind me to call Schmitty Friday at noon, for example — or you tin can create a reminder that'll appear when y'all arrive at a particular location: Remind me to club more than turnips when I get to piece of work, Remind me to check on the turnip-ordering progress when I'm at the Chicago aerodrome, Remind me to mention the customer's turnip-caused rash when I get to Red Robin, and and then on.

7. Yous tin set reminders with full general locations, too — such as Remind me to pick upward ointment at the grocery or Remind me that Gladys wants an Egg McMuffin when I get to McDonald's — and Assistant volition deliver the bulletin the next time you lot go far at a relevant place.

8. Got something you need to recollect on a regular basis? Ask Assistant to create recurring reminders for you. Only add together the discussion every into your command — as in: Remind me to check the printers every Tuesday at 3, Remind me to touch base of operations with Stu on the outset day of every month, or Remind me to buy the boss some birthday turnips on June iv every yr. From that moment forrard, yous'll never have to worry nigh forgetting again.

9. In addition to regular reminders, Google Banana tin aid you call up random facts. Just tell it what you need to know — such as Remember that the function Wi-Fi password is FreshProsciutto7, Recollect that my rental car is a carmine Toyota Camry with Florida license plate PE379Q, or Retrieve that the boss's husband is an accountant named Morty.

Then, when you need to call back the info, just say, What did I tell you about followed by the subject — the office Wi-Fi password, my rental automobile, or whatever the case may exist.

09 google assistant android remember JR Raphael/IDG

Tell Assistant anything on your listen, and yous'll always exist able to call that info upwardly when you need it.

10. After a long and winding road of awkward limitations, Assistant'south note to self command now lets you transcribe a quick memo for your future self in any app you lot prefer, so long as the app is installed on your phone and uniform with the part. To select your preferred note-taking provider, say Assistant settings and and so expect for the "Notes & lists" choice on the screen that comes up. One time yous've made your choice, you can simply say notation to cocky and and so rattle off whatsoever'south on your mind to have a note saved instantly in whatever app you lot picked.

Messages and advice

xi. The next fourth dimension you demand to make a call, let Banana deed as your operator. Simply tell information technology to call whatever publicly listed business or any person in your contacts — specifying mobile or piece of work if needed — and then sit dorsum while the digits are dialed. If you're driving and demand to get completely hands-gratis, add on speakerphone to the end of your request.

12. Ship a text without lifting a finger by telling Google Banana text followed by your contact's name. Assistant will enquire for your bulletin and, one time yous've finished dictating, evidence it on the screen and ask if you desire to edit it. If your eyes are on the route and you tin can't look down, you can e'er take your chances and say send it when that second prompt comes up.

13. Demand to catch up on text messages when your eyes are otherwise occupied? If you're using Google'southward own Messages app on Android, tell Assistant read my messages. Information technology'll walk you lot through your nearly contempo texts and offering to permit you respond to any pending messages via vox at the same time. You can also specify a contact's name — Read my messages from Arthur, for example — if you're looking for something specific.

13 google assistant android messages JR Raphael/IDG

Ask Assistant to read you your messages for an easy manner to stay in bear on without having to do whatsoever touching of your screen.

xiv. Banana makes information technology easy to find emails within Gmail too: Just ask it to find my emails from a particular contact or to detect my emails about a specific discipline, and it'll pop upwardly tappable results right within its interface.

fifteen. Y'all can likewise send emails in Gmail via Banana. Use the following format: Send email to [contact name], subject [your subject field], message [your message].

Phone functions and settings

sixteen. The next time you need a screenshot, skip the usual push button-pressing madness and tell Banana to take a screenshot. You lot'll have a saved image of your current screen waiting and set up in the blink of an centre.

17. Listening to some sort of (ahem) of import business-related sound in the car? Tell Assistant to turn the volume upward or downwards or to set information technology to a specific level (fix the volume to x) or pct (prepare the volume to l%). You tin too tell Banana to mute the volume, if y'all only need some frickin' peace and quiet.

18. Speaking of silence, you lot tin always tell Assistant to turn Do Not Disturb on (or off). The same commands will even work from whatever other Assistant-connected device where you lot're signed into the same Google account, if you need to shush your telephone while it isn't in forepart of you.

19. When an unidentified gremlin hides your phone (considering we all know you lot would never be and so empty-headed equally to misplace it yourself), ask any other Assistant-enabled device on which your account is connected — a Chromebook, a tablet, or even an Banana-associated speaker or display you've got sitting on the corner of your desk-bound — to find my phone. That'll cause the phone to ring loudly, no matter where it might be tucked away.

20. Another helpful universal Assistant command: What's my phone's bombardment level? Inquire that of your phone or any other Banana-enabled device where yous're signed in, and you'll know exactly how your stamina's property up without having to stop whatever else you're doing or lift a single finger.

20 google assistant android battery level JR Raphael/IDG

Get a fast update on your telephone's battery level with Assistant's help.

21. Speaking of avoiding unnecessary finger-exertion, Google Assistant tin get around your Android phone for you in a flash. Try telling it to open [whatever app or website] for a zippy way to zoom anywhere y'all need to go.

22. Your Android-domicile Banana tin can even read you articles in the Chrome Android app, the Google News app, or the Google app out loud on demand — a perfect mode to take in info on the go. But summon your e'er-bachelor helper and say read this when you've got something open in i of those places.

23. Why swipe and search through your phone'due south settings when you can simply speak your desires? Assistant is standing by and ready to handle all sorts of settings on your Android device. Try telling it to turn Wi-Fi on (or off), turn Bluetooth on (or off), turn flashlight on (or off), turn airplane manner on (or off), or turn bombardment saver mode on (or off) — or even to dim (or brighten) the screen.

24. You can as well ask Assistant to take you to the expanded settings sections for areas like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, if yous need to swoop a trivial deeper and check on a connection. Just say Wi-Fi settings or Bluetooth settings — or, if you're feeling chatty, add Have me to in front end of those phrases.

25. If you realize you've asked Assistant something you don't want it to remember (and don't worry: I won't enquire for details), merely think the command that wasn't for you lot. That'll cause Assistant to delete the most recent inquiry from your business relationship-connected history.

26. You tin can also ask Assistant to delete everything from the concluding calendar week — or hour, day, or even just the concluding v minutes — for a broader clearing of your contempo conversations.

27. Assistant can help you zip over to your business relationship-wide Google search history, also. But say bear witness my Google search history, and you'll be able to scan through all the activity that's been recorded beyond Assistant, YouTube, and other associated sources.

27 google assistant android search history JR Raphael/IDG

Ask, and ye shall receive: One quick command will crusade Assistant to load all of your recent searches and other activity from a variety of Google services.

Bonus: If the results frighten or overwhelm yous, tell Assistant to make a howling audio. It'll set an eerily appropriate mood.

Location and travel

28. Whether yous're genuinely lost or just pondering your existential nature, try firing upward Banana and maxim: Where am I? That'll allow Assistant to tap into your phone'southward GPS and give you a tappable map of your precise current location.

29. If you lot're trying to meet up with someone else, ask Assistant to share my location. That'll assistance you temporarily grant anyone else access to your current whereabouts, even as y'all move around, and navigate to that very same spot.

30. Provided you take the advisable apps installed, you can ask your friendly virtual genie to hail yous a ride with Lyft, Uber, or other similar ride-sharing services. Only tell Assistant to order me a Lyft (or whatever service you're using) or inquire it to book a car to a specific destination to go the wheels a-rollin'.

31. Let Assistant give you a heads-upwards on traffic before you head out for the twenty-four hours. Only ask: What's the traffic similar on the way to work? (provided you've gear up your work address within the Google Maps app) — or How long will information technology take to get to whatever specific business name or address. And, of form, you lot can always tell Assistant to give you directions or navigate (by automobile, pes, or public transit) to whatsoever place you need as well.

31 google assistant android traffic JR Raphael/IDG

Let Banana assist you lot estimate travel times — by car, public transit, or even your own two anxiety.

32. Traveling for work? Or picking up an out-of-town interviewee? Banana can give you upwardly-to-date flight info for any airline. Only inquire: When does [the airline name and flight number] arrive? — or Is [the airline name and the flying number] on time?