Starting Thursday, you can transfer money to family and friends by using Google assistant. The facility will be available for both Android and iOS users. The users need to have a Google Pay account to carry out the transaction. You can even send money to any of your contacts even though they do not have the Google Pay account. In this case, Google Assistant guides you through the process of registration for Google pay. Google Assistant asks you to link your debit card to the account before you proceed with the transaction.
The Google pay users will be notified of the receipt of payment and the process of transfer takes less than a second. Similar to the Google pay in Android phones, the Google Assistant can send up to $9,999 in one go. So the people will be able to voice or input text messages via the Google assistant like “Hey Google send Edward $20 for lunch today” and Hey Google request $15 from Jennifer for the concert today”. The new feature gives tough competition to money transfer apps like Paypal’s Venmo, square and Zelle.
However, the process is not completely hands-free as expected. You need to authorize the transaction on the smartphone by either a fingerprint or a password. The feature will be rolled out to the Google’s home smart speakers in the coming months. The process will be same when Google Pay will be introduced into home smart speakers. The rivalry between Google and Amazon has been intensifying day by day with both the tech giants looking to establish their dominance in the field of virtual assistants. It is no wonder that Amazon may roll out a similar service through Amazon pay to the Amazon Alexa to stay in the hunt.
Also Read: Google Assistant emerged as the smartest Assistant in a recent study
So, in future, we can expect Google and Amazon adding many new features to their digital assistants to stay on top. However, the feature is currently available only in the U.S and in English only.
