Google announced a new artificial intelligence that can help you avoid waiting for a long time when a call center agent puts you on hold. "Hold For Me" will be available to Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a's owners in the United States. 

Google's 'Hold For Me' Is Your New AI Secretary, Notifying You When Its Time to Pick the Phone After Long Hold
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LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 09: In this photo illustration, an image of the Google logo is reflected on the eye of a young man on August 09, 2017 in London, England. Founded in 1995 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google now makes hundreds of products used by billions of people across the globe, from YouTube and Android to Smartbox and Google Search.

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It involves AI tools that act as an automatic secretary or assistant when a customer representative places you on hold, allowing you to put down your phone and do other things. The new service will notify you if the agent picks up the phone, giving you enough time to get back on the phone. 

Hold For Me will also ask the representative to wait until you get back, preventing them from hanging up the call because of dead air. 

"Every business's hold loop is different and simple algorithms can't accurately detect when a customer support representative comes on to the call," said Google's Joseph Cherukara and Duplex Goodman. 

"Hold for Me is powered by Google's Duplex technology, which not only recognizes hold music but also understands the difference between a recorded message (like' Hello, thank you for waiting') and a representative on the line," they added.  

Hold For Me service will only be available to only a limited number of people 

The new service has some limitations since its first rollout is extremely limited. It is because Google only produced 800,000 units of Pixel 5. 

Google's 'Hold For Me' Is Your New AI Secretary, Notifying You When Its Time to Pick the Phone After Long Hold
(Photo : Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)
BERLIN, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 26: A visitor uses a cell phone in front of the Google logo on September 26, 2012 at the official opening party of the Google offices in Berlin, Germany. Although the American company holds 95% of the German search engine market share and already has offices in Hamburg and Munich, its new offices on the prestigious Unter den Linden avenue are its first in the German capital. The Internet giant has been met with opposition in the country recently by the former president's wife, who has sued it based on search results for her name that she considers derogative. The European Commission has planned new data privacy regulations in a country where many residents opted in to have their homes pixeled out when the company introduced its Street View technology.

The company also hasn't announced any updates yet if it will launch Hold For Me on other devices, and it will only work in the U.S. with toll-free numbers. Before trying a new service, it is also important to take note that it will have Google's Duplex, the controversial technology that was used to offer an increasing amount of telephone-based automation. 

Duplex was first launched in 2018, allowing Google users to make reservations and appointments in restaurants automatically, with an AI assistant's help to make the phone call. The technology could effectively mimic a person's "er" and "mmm-hmm" to fill the gaps between words. Because of its ability, some people said that Duplex is deceitful.  

For more news updates about Google's new technologies, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.  

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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.

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