Pixel users may soon be able to get the Google Assistant to go on hold for them

One of the most prominent and annoying remaining uses of the voice call is to contact company hotlines for various businesses or personal reasons. This often leads to the risk of being put on hold. A user has the option of putting a smartphone down and doing other things while this is going on these days; however, this is not a perfect system. The user might get distracted beyond hearing or noticing when an actual operator has come back to the call, for example.

A popular tech blog's sources appear confident that Google thinks this is a problem worthy of AI assistance. To this end, the Mountain View company has allegedly developed a new feature for the Assistant, which may or may not be called Hold my Phone. It allows the user to tap an on-screen button that alerts the software system when a given call is put on hold.

The voice-activated helper will then apparently monitor the call by itself until a respondent has come back onto the call. It will then alert the user, albeit in ways 9to5Google is less than clear on at present. All in all, should this report prove true, this new feature sounds like a new bell or whistle Google could wheel out at its next launch event. 

However, this may not be the case after all. The blog's sources have also reportedly told it that Hold my Phone is unlikely to be ready by the time the Pixel 4 series is. Nevertheless, this may not stop Google from promoting it as an upcoming perk that, like Call Screen or AR Navigation before it, may to be exclusive to these smartphones in its first few months of life at least.