The ‘OK Google’ voice search is coming to Chromebooks

Android phones and tablets have come pre-installed with Google Now, Google’s own virtual assistant, for some time now, and one of the features is that the phone is always listening in for the command ‘OK Google’. Now that feature is coming to Chromebooks.

So what does that mean? Well whenever a Chromebook is turned on and unlocked, it will respond to anyone who says ‘OK Google’. Then you can do all the things Google Now can do, like perform Google searches, set reminders, and so on.

Google’s François Beaufort showed off some of the features, but emphasised that the always-listening voice control is still a feature that’s only available to developers in the Dev-Channel. That being said, once all the bugs have been dealt with we’ll definitely be seeing a full-on public launch.

If you have a Chromebook and you feel like testing out this new feature (and others when they become available), TalkAndroid has a handy step-by-step guide to activating the Dev-Channel. There’s no word on whether this feature will ever come to non-Google devices without having to use Google Chrome, but we can hope can’t we?

Tom Pritchard