Google Assistant's Continued Conversation is broken on Pixel phones

Hey Google, are you listening?

Continued Conversation in Google Assistant makes talking with the digital assistant feel more natural as you don't need to say "Hey Google" before every interaction. You can ask Assistant a question, and after it has issued a response, you can follow up with another question without repeating the hotword as the microphone remains open for about eight seconds. This makes the entire interaction a lot more conversational and less robotic. However, reports are trickling in from Pixel owners that the feature has been broken for well over a week now.

As reported by 9to5Google, the Assistant light bar immediately disappears after responding to a question or executing a command. This means you have to say the "Hey Google" hotword again to get the assistant to listen to you. Affected Pixel users report that rebooting their device or turning the feature on/off from the Google app settings menu did not help resolve the issue. Even updating to the latest version of the Google app from the Play Store was in vain. This likely points to the problem being caused by a server-side glitch from Google. The issue seems to affect all compatible Pixel devices, including the Pixel 6 and Pixel 5.

Continued Conversation is available on all supported Pixels and Assistant-powered speakers and smart displays. However, the feature is only broken on phones, as it works on other smart speakers and displays.

Now that the issue is getting some media attention, Google should roll out a fix sooner than later. The lack of Continued Conversation will make interacting with Assistant a lot more frustrating on your Pixel, but on the positive side, the bug is at least not as bad as the one that led the Pixel 6 to auto-dial random contacts, an issue which Google recently fixed. Perhaps that same update has inadvertently broken Continued Conversation?

About The Author