New features coming to Google Assistant this week

This month is all about moms and Google is celebrating Mother's Day with a set of new features for Assistant. Many of these new features are aimed at families, but anyone else can use them. All the new stuff is coming to Android and iOS devices this week, but if you don't see them in the next few days, be patient.

The first thing worth mentioning is Google Assistant's Family Broadcast feature that has just become better. Starting this week, Google Assistant users will be able to reach their family wherever they are and they will be able to respond from any device, including from their smartphones.

If you've already created a Google Family Group, you can now say “Hey Google, tell my family, how about lunch at noon?” and the message will reach everyone so that they can reply by voice or by tapping the reply button.

Furthermore, Google announced that it has added two new Family Bell reminders along with the option to end the bell by just saying “stop” instead of using “Hey Google.” On top of that, Google confirmed that it will add support for eight new languages for this specific feature in the coming weeks: Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

More importantly, Google is releasing the ability to have Family Bells ring on multiple home devices at one time, not just one smart speaker or display.



But that's not all! Some entertainment features are making their way to Google Assistant too. New stories and games accessible from a smart display or Android device will be added this week. Google has teamed up with Pottermore Publishing, so you'll be getting a lot of Harry Potter stories.

Finally, Google is teasing a couple of easter eggs that have been implemented. Simply use a timer on Mother's Day if you want to find out what's this all about.