Google Assistant can now read your text messages

Now that Google is rolling out its Assistant to devices running Marshmallow and Nougat, they’re adding one more feature that users have been requesting for some time: Google Assistant can now read and interact with SMS text messages. This feature is now on the latest beta version 6.14 of the Google app on a Pixel and should be available in stable version 6.13.

The ‘Read messages’ has already been on Google Now for some time. Google Assistant will now respond to a number of responses including “Do I have any messages?” and “Show me my last message.” This latter prompt will automatically open up your last SMS text conversation. Assistant works with your default SMS client and functions with Facebook Messenger and the SMS features on Google Hangout.

As you go through the list, Assistant will by default speak the sender’s name and ask whether you want to hear the message or skip to the next one. As of now, Google Assistant cannot read notifications.

Other AI Assistants such as Siri and Alexa were already able to read text messages for some time. Siri is also able to read notifications, so Google has some motivation to catch up with one of its primary competitors.

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