Google Assistant finally gets support for interacting with text messages

Just a few days after announcing and then rolling out Google Assistant for all Android phones on Marshmallow and above, Google has finally gotten around to enabling support for interacting with text messages for the service.

To see your messages in Google Assistant, there are a variety of commands including:

• Show me my messages
• Do I have any messages?
• Show me my last message

Each of these does something specific, either creating a list of your previous messages, showing you a message interface, or bringing up the last conversation you had. You can directly reply to any conversation you bring up in Google Assistant, too. You can also have the message read to you or skip around to previous messages.

The new feature uses whatever default SMS client you have set to default on your phone, but it also supports Hangouts and Facebook Messenger SMS integration. The only downside to this new rollout is that Google Assistant still can’t seem to read notifications.

Right now the Google Assistant rollout is a server-side only thing, so if you don’t have the Assistant yet you’ll have to hang tight as there’s no way to force the update on your phone.

[via 9to5Google]