Google Assistant can help compare ride-hailing prices and summon a ride

Looks like giving Google Assistant a redesigned UI wasn’t enough for Google this week, as it’s giving its digital assistant another feature to add to the roster.

Google Assistant can now help you book a ride-hailing service and get a car sent your way, but it’ll still need some help at the end. You can start things off with your voice easily enough, and Google Assistant will show you the information from within the app itself, rather than forcing you to switch to Google Maps to show off the pertinent details.

Just say something like, “Hey Google, book a ride to” and inform the digital personal assistant of your destination. Once that’s done it will show you ride-hailing prices so you can compare before you summon a car. Those price estimations will show what Uber, Lyft, GO-JEK, Ola, Grab, and “many more” services, and the feature will show wait times for each of those options as well.

If you want to speed things up, just say which ride-hailing service you want to use within the initial voice query. The new feature works on most devices where Google Assistant is available, including on the iPhone and Google Home smart speakers. Google says support for smart displays is coming at some point in the future.

While you can start things with your voice, you’ll need to finish the process with your phone and the app of the ride-hailing service you choose. Finally, Google says “first in English and any country where one of our supported ride service partners operate. We plan to expand to more languages in the coming months.”

What do you think of Google Assistant’s latest feature addition?

source: androidandme