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Usually, itās the businesses that are behind robocalls, but if you work at a nail salon or an auto repair shop, get ready for customers to start sending hordes of AI Karens your way.
Googleās latest experimental AI feature, available to those who sign up for āAsk for meā on Google Search Labs, is aiming to be a sort of personal AI secretary for you. Once enabled, itāll pop up an āAsk for meā button under certain searches, promising to call local shops for you to help you figure out availability, service costs, and the like.
Clicking the āAsk for meā button will take you to a form, where youāll fill out, for example, the make and model of your car, what services you need, and when you can come in. Google will then canvass local shops (there doesnāt seem to be an option to send a call only to a specific shop) and then email or text you back with results.
On their end, business owners will hear a message at the start of every call indicating that itās an automated system calling on behalf of a potential customer, Google spokesperson Craig Ewer told The Verge.
If that sounds annoying, business owners can opt out, either within their Google Business Profile settings or by simply telling the AI not to call them back. For those that decide to humor the robocalls, Ewer told The Verge that Google is doing its best to ensure businesses donāt get overloaded with calls, and will use information collected from prior calls to help answer future ones without bothering an employee.
Over on X, Google product lead Rose Yao said Ask for me is powered by Duplex, an existing Google feature that (mostly) uses AI to make reservations on your behalf, but itās more geared towards research than actually booking anything. As itās still experimental, itās limited to nail salons and auto shops for now, though it could presumably expand in the future.
As someone with social anxiety, I can see the surface level appeal here, although Iām not sure Iād ever want to commit the sin of making someone else talk to a robot.
Full story here:
Googleās latest experimental AI feature, available to those who sign up for āAsk for meā on Google Search Labs, is aiming to be a sort of personal AI secretary for you. Once enabled, itāll pop up an āAsk for meā button under certain searches, promising to call local shops for you to help you figure out availability, service costs, and the like.
Clicking the āAsk for meā button will take you to a form, where youāll fill out, for example, the make and model of your car, what services you need, and when you can come in. Google will then canvass local shops (there doesnāt seem to be an option to send a call only to a specific shop) and then email or text you back with results.
On their end, business owners will hear a message at the start of every call indicating that itās an automated system calling on behalf of a potential customer, Google spokesperson Craig Ewer told The Verge.
If that sounds annoying, business owners can opt out, either within their Google Business Profile settings or by simply telling the AI not to call them back. For those that decide to humor the robocalls, Ewer told The Verge that Google is doing its best to ensure businesses donāt get overloaded with calls, and will use information collected from prior calls to help answer future ones without bothering an employee.
Over on X, Google product lead Rose Yao said Ask for me is powered by Duplex, an existing Google feature that (mostly) uses AI to make reservations on your behalf, but itās more geared towards research than actually booking anything. As itās still experimental, itās limited to nail salons and auto shops for now, though it could presumably expand in the future.
As someone with social anxiety, I can see the surface level appeal here, although Iām not sure Iād ever want to commit the sin of making someone else talk to a robot.
Full story here: