Google Assistant on Pixels has gained a handy new shortcut

No need to say 'Read this to me' anymore

The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro have been in our hands firmly for a few weeks now, but we keep discovering new stuff in both the hardware and the software. As it turns out, Android 12 gives the Assistant on Pixel phones a neat new shortcut to the Read it to me feature we covered a while ago.

When you hit up Google Assistant while reading an article on your Pixel phone running Android 12 (such as the one you’re looking at right now), you should see two new shortcuts at the top of the sheet that slides out from the bottom. There’s a Lens shortcut and a “Read” option. While Lens does its usual thing by providing you with additional details to images and text seen on your screen, the Read shortcut takes you right to the Assistant's relatively unknown screen reader feature for articles.

Image Gallery (3 Images)

While it’s now super simple for Pixel users to access, the feature is available on all Android phones. If you don't have the shortcuts, you need to invoke the Assistant while reading an article and say something like “Read it,” “Read it to me,” or “Read it aloud.” That will throw you into the same podcast player-like interface that you can see in the middle screenshot above. For more details, be sure to check out our in-depth tutorial.

As with virtually any software feature Google releases these days, it’s entirely possible that the new Assistant shortcuts are linked to further dependencies. For example, the two shortcuts aren’t available on my Pixel 3, which is otherwise updated with the latest available release of Android 12 and the Google app. It’s possible that it just hasn’t rolled out to this phone yet, but Google could also cut off compatibility based on how old your hardware is. Be sure to update both your Google app and your phone to the latest available software to try your luck, but your mileage may still vary.

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Manuel Vonau (1483 Articles Published)

Manuel is a tech enthusiast and Android fan based in Berlin. When he's not writing articles for Android Police, he's probably out and about as a videographer.

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