On Thursday, the company announced the release of its "Pretty Please" feature for Google Assistant, which helps encourage polite manners when interacting with its smart home devices. The feature was first announced at Google's I/O developers conference in May.
The "Pretty Please" feature works when users talking to their Google Assistant include words like "please" or "thank you" in their requests. Like, "Hey Google, please set a timer for 5 minutes." With "Pretty Please," a Google Assistant might respond to that request by saying: "Thanks for asking so nicely. Alright, 5 minutes. Starting now."
The idea behind "Pretty Please" is to reinforce polite behaviours for children and adults as well. The feature is now live on Google's Smart Speakers and for all those who have registered their voices with the Google Assistant app.
It is not yet available on Google voice interaction on Android smartphones in South Africa.
In April, Amazon announced a similar feature called "Magic Word" for its smart assistant Alexa to reward and reinforce polite behaviours amongst users, especially children.