Now that Google Assistant has 8 english voices to choose from, the company is rolling out a colorful update that gives US users a new interface for changing Assistant’s voice. According to Google, You just select a color associated with a random voice.
The update should be platform-agnostic and will be widely available in the US by the end of the week. It’s not certain how screen readers will interpret the colors or when other countries will receive the new interface, but that’s also dependent on having multi-voice support in your region.
Prior to the change, Google simply listed its eight available voices as “Voice 1” and “Voice 2” and so on, and alternated between male and female-sounding voices as you scroll through the list.
How to change the Google Assistant voice on your phone and Google Home
How to change the Google Assistant voice on your Android phone
To change the Google Assistant voice to one of the six new options on your phone, you have to get into the Assistant’s settings.
Note: Your phone must be running Android 6.0 Marshmallow or later to have access to Assistant.
- Long-press the home button to activate Google Assistant.
- Press the blue explore button in the top right corner.
- Select the three-dot menu button.
- Select Settings.
- Select Preferences.
- Select Assistant voice
- Select the voice you want.
Change the Google Assistant voice on your Google Home
The procedure to change the Assistant voice on your Google Home is pretty similar since your account shares the voice between phone and speaker. In this example, though, we’ll be using the Google Home app on Android, the steps are similar for the iOS app.
- Open the Google Home app.
- Open the left-side menu.
- Select More settings.
- Select Preferences.
- Select Assistant voice.
- Select the new voice.
That’s it! Now your voice should be different on both your phone and your Google Home.
Note: The additional voices are also limited to U.S. users at the moment, anyone who sets their Assistant’s language to English U.S should see the changes.
