In a strange reversal of the usual seller/customer dynamic, Google is now giving buyers the power to send out their own robocalls. It’s not the first time the company has experimented with giving the average Joe the ability to send AI robocalls, but it is much more robust than previous outings.
Rolling out today, the feature will show up while you’re browsing for certain products on Search, so long as you add a “near me” to the end of your query. If the product is supported, you’ll see a “Let Google Call” button, which is where the fun begins.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Tap “Get started,” and the AI will ask you a few clarifying questions and have you fill in your email (or phone number) and address information. After that, it’ll call local businesses on your behalf and ask for product availability and pricing before sending you an email or text with information broken down by store.
At a press event, I got to experience a live demo of what these robocalls sound like from the seller’s perspective. If you’re worried about getting blacklisted for pestering your local stores with too many calls, don’t be. The robocall does not link itself to you at all, and instead says it’s an AI calling on behalf of Google and that it won’t use the information on the call for training purposes (phew). It’ll then ask a few questions before hanging up and moving on. In the demo, the Google employee acting the part of store clerk was also able to interrupt the call and refer to previous statements for context without issue, although she also spoke clearly and slowly—this might not pan out as well in the real world.
For what it’s worth, I did think the call sounded a little disconcertingly close to a human voice for me, so I could see some employees getting confused if they miss the first line clarifying it’s coming from an AI. A Google spokesperson at the press event also addressed what might happen if your robocall gets picked up by an automatic answering system, saying “they’ll figure it out” before suggesting that, in a worst case scenario, the answering system would probably forward the call to a human.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
Unfortunately, Google didn’t give any indication of how long it might take for you to get your text or email with results from your calls. Examples that Google demonstrated showed that the robot can do more than simply report inventory and price; it can also make notes about special deals or bundles an employee might mention.
This feature is currently limited to “categories like toys, health and beauty, and electronics” for now, so don’t expect to be able to use it for everything yet. It also seems to have a somewhat slow rollout—either I didn’t know what to search, or I don’t have the feature yet, because I couldn’t get it to pop up for me while I was writing this article.
What do you think so far?
If you’re anything like me, your biggest concern about this feature is that you might annoy the workers at whatever stores you’re calling. Google says it will try to limit multiple calls asking for the same info (such as from multiple customers who want to know the same thing) and that it will avoid calling late at night or early in the morning. Businesses are also able to opt out of getting AI calls by saying something like “please stop calling my business” during the call, or by updating their business profile under More > Business Profile settings > Advanced settings > Google automated calls and text messages.
Google’s AI robocalls also are only available in the U.S. and only in English, so business owners abroad can breathe a sigh of relief. Because of state laws, AI robocalls also can’t be placed in Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, and Nebraska.
I’ll admit that I have opted not to call a business because of social anxiety before, although I’m not sure having a robot bother someone for me would make me feel any better.