Google is today bringing the next generation Google Assistant to the world with its new Pixel 4 line of devices. The company first demoed the next-generation Assistant back at its I/O conference in May, and it’s debuting on the Pixel 4. Spoiler alert: it’s eerily amazing.

The next-generation Assistant features a less intrusive UI where the Assistant simply pops up at the bottom of the device, without obstructing your current view. Assistant kind of just “lives” at the bottom of the device, meaning you can access it whenever you want without disrupting whatever else you are doing.

You can simply swipe up from any side to activate Assistant or say Hey Google, and once activated, you can start giving commands. And thanks to Continued Conversation, you don’t need to say Hey Google for follow-up commands — Assistant will simply start listening to you after finishing the previous task. What’s really amazing, however, is the speed at which the new Assistant works.

Google says the next-generation Google Assistant works on-device, utilising hardware features like the Pixel 4’s Pixel Neural Core to process some your commands locally instead of Google’s servers. It only processes some tasks locally, so some of the commands still get sent to Google’s servers. That still introduces an added level of privacy, and more importantly: it increases the performance significantly.

You can essentially use the Pixel 4 without using your hands thanks to the next-gen, faster Assistant. The Assistant can, for example, attach a picture to a conversation you are having and automatically reply with that photo in that conversation. The integration is very well thought out, and if it works as advertised, the next-generation Assistant on the Pixel 4 could be very, very promising.

Tagged with Google, Google Assistant, Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel Neural Core