Google is expanding its “Snapshot” feature in Assistant, adding new reminders and more proactive suggestions for new activities you may want to try.
The initial version of Snapshot showed information like your daily commute time, upcoming schedule, reminders, upcoming flights, recent online orders, and stock market updates. Google is adding to that list with additional reminders for things like upcoming birthdays or holidays, too.
The updated Snapshot view will also expand its recommendations — where the app would previously suggest YouTube videos or Spotify songs, the updated version will use your existing user data to offer new recipe ideas, podcasts, or restaurants to order from. Those suggestions will update over the course of your day, too, just like the rest of the Snapshot mode (so you won’t get breakfast recipe suggestions at dinner time).
To make Snapshot more useful, Google is adding a new way to access it: now, you can pull up the view at any time in the Assistant app by saying “Hey Google, show me my day,” in addition to hitting the Snapshot button within the app. (The voice command feature is only available for customers with English as their default language, but it will roll out for more languages in the future.)
Lastly, Google is adding birthday reminders to Assistant’s notification options. If it’s one of your contacts’ birthdays, Assistant can send you an alert, bringing you straight to an action card where you can easily call, text, or sing “a personalized birthday song.”
The new Google Assistant features are available now in the Assistant app on iOS and Android.
