After Launching on the Google Pixelbook, Google Assistant is Being Added to Chrome OS

Last year, when Google launched the Pixelbook, it raised a lot of eyebrows. At $1,700, it was shockingly expensive for a Chromebook. But it was also one of the few devices other than the Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2 with native Google Assistant integration (you can say, "Hey, Google", or "OK, Google", to pull up Google's virtual assistant). In the months since the Pixelbook's launch, the search giant has brought the Assistant to other devices including older Android phones, smart displays, third-party speakers, and headphones. And now, it's poised to enable the Google Assistant on Chrome OS.

As we were digging through the Chromium Gerrit, a merged commit caught our eye. The text description for the commit reads, "add Assistant feature flags changes accordingly" and, "Assistant service provides core Google Assistant functionality".

It seems to lay the groundwork for native Google Assistant integration on Chrome OS devices, which isn't too surprising — in June 2017, a commit in the Gerrit specifically mentioned "[adding] Google Assistant settings to the settings UI" and "[launching] an Intent when the 'Google Assistant Settings' is tapped."

The two snippets, shown above, give us an idea as to how the Google Assistant will work on Chromebooks and Chrome OS. By default, it'll be disabled ("FEATURE_DISABLE_BY_DEFAULT"; "By default AssistantManager will not start listening for its hotword until we explicitly set EnableListening() to |true|") — OEMs who don't want to enable the Assistant on their devices won't need to do any extra work. Once it's enabled, though, an additional setting ("Controls whether enable Google Assistant") will allow or prevent Chromebooks from listening for the Google Assistant hotword:

If an OEM wants to confine the Google Assistant to a button press, it'll be easy for them to configure Chrome OS that way.

Google Assistant on Chromebooks is still a work in progress, but it looks likely that it'll come to Chrome OS devices other than the Pixelbook once the integration is complete.

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