Google is removing Assistant integration with third-party lists and notes apps. You’ll soon lose the ability to take notes or create lists over Google Assistant voice commands on apps like Any.do, AnyList, and Bring. The company is taking away this convenience on June 20.
Third-party lists and notes apps are losing Google Assistant integration
Google has been distancing Assistant away from third-party products and services recently. In June last year, the company announced that it will end support for third-party voice experiences on smart displays and speakers in a year’s time. The move effectively kills Assistant voice apps and games for the Nest Hub and other similar products.
As the June 20 deadline approaches, we now know another casualty of this deprecation. Google says on a support page that “notes or lists created with Google Assistant using a non-Google list service won’t be available after June 20th, 2023”. AnyList also recently sent an email to users notifying them about this impending shutdown. The notification states that users will not be able to add items to the app over Google Assistant voice commands.
“We know many of our customers rely on AnyList’s integration with Google Assistant and that the loss of this feature is frustrating and disappointing,” AnyList co-founders Jason Marr and Jeff Hunter wrote in a blog post. “We are continuing to communicate with Google and hope to be able to support Google Assistant on Android devices again in the future, but we don’t have anything to announce at this time.”
This deprecation is because of Google ending support for the Conversational Actions platform that enabled third-party apps to integrate with Assistant. The same platform powered Assistant voice apps and games as well. The company wants developers to add voice command capabilities to their apps rather than relying on integration. Perhaps that’s what Jason and Jeff were referring to when they said they hope to be able to support Google Assistant on AnyList again in the future.
These apps still work with Siri or Alexa voice assistants
It’s worth noting that AnyList, as well as other impacted third-party lists and notes apps, still work with other voice assistants like Apple Siri and Amazon Alexa. Of course, the former is not available for Android users, but the latter is. Meanwhile, this change doesn’t affect Google’s in-house note-taking app, Google Keep. The company confirmed to 9to5Google that the app will continue to function the same way as before. You can download it here.
2023-06-01 15:14:00