Google Assistant to soon power hands-free texting, YouTube Music discovery integration

Google continues to make Google Assistant integrated into a lot of its apps, devices, and the whole eco-system. We will soon be getting a “hands-free” voice typing feature where you can go ahead and send messages without having to touch your phone (or at least barely). You can now also use your digital voice assistant to play tunes from YouTube Music onto your smart speaker or Google Assistant-powered devices. Hopefully, we get to see even more integrations and new features as we continue to rely on devices to make our lives easier (just no robot overlords please).

Just last year, Google brought live transcriptions to Pixel devices, even making it on-device and in real-time. Now we’ll be getting a hands-free voice typing feature on the GBoard virtual keyboard, building on the powers of Google Assistant. 9 to 5 Google spotted this upcoming feature on an APK teardown. Basically what will happen is you’ll be prompted to tap on the mic on Board if you want to “type” hands-free.

When you tap on the mic, you’ll see an overlay on top of the keyboard. It tells you to “speak now to type hands-free” and above that, you’ll see three buttons: Close, Delete, Send It. When you start speaking, you’ll see a light bar at the bottom which means you’re inputting something. You’ll also see some graphics like “continue speaking” in case you need some encouragement or reminder. This feature is tied to the new Google Assistant so you will need that to access this voice typing

Meanwhile, to add to the new integrations that YouTube Music is bringing to the Google ecosystem, you can now use Google Assistant for music discovery. Just say “Hey Google, play recommended music from YouTube Music” and you will get personalized music suggestions based on what you’re listening to on the app. You can do this on Google Nest smart speakers and other Google Assistant-powered devices.

Google says they’re also testing the ability to play your personal playlists from YouTube Music through Google Assistant. This is one of the most requested features and it’s now available Nest speakers and smart displays in the U.S. only.