One of the ways Google is attempting to make interactions with the Assistant more natural is allowing follow-up questions and interactions without having to repeat “Hey Google” each time. The company announced a new feature called “Continued Conversation” at its developer conference in May.
Continued Conversation launches today in the US, and allows users to have a “natural back and forth conversation” with the device without using the wake work trigger every time they want to ask a question. This has been one of the top requests from users, according to the company. In March, Amazon launched “Follow-up Mode,”, which is similar to Continued Conversation.
With this new feature, users can keep asking or talking with the Assistant for long periods of times, so long as there isn’t an extended pause in the conversation. Right now, it’s unclear how many follow-up questions can be asked.
According to Google, the Assistant recognizes when you are talking to it, rather than to somebody else in the same room. Continued Conversation will be available on Google Home, Google Home Mini, and Google Home Max.
The new feature can be used once users have enabled it, as it’s not on by default. If you would like to enable it, go to Settings, then Preferences, and then Continued Conversation to enable.
Continued Conversion can be ended by saying “stop” or “thank you.” You can even end the conversation by simply stopping talking to it.
The discussion of Continued Conversant in the Google I/O keynote starts at 22:34.