Google Assistant was initially limited to just the Pixel smartphones and then Google at MWC 2017 had mentioned that the Google Assistant service will be rolled out to every Android smartphone that runs Android Marshmallow OS and later. The first smartphone apart from Pixel to have the Assistant pre-loaded in it was the LG G6, which was announced at the same event in Barcelona.
Now, Google has announced that it is sending updates to the smartphones with Google Assistant and this couldn’t be a happier news because there is no such restriction except a couple of them and that you need to run one of the latest Android OS versions.
So, how to check if your Android phone is eligible to get Google Assistant update?
There’s no special way to check that but only a couple of ways and that you can know easily as you might have looked at them as requirements when buying your phone. What is required for Google Assistant to run is that the phone should have Android 6.0 Marshmallow or Android Nougat OS to run.
If you don’t know, go to Settings > About and that is where you can find out the Android OS version that your phone is running. Chances are that your smartphone might have been running Android Lollipop earlier and then got a big update to Android Marshmallow and now, thanks to that, it might be eligible to get the Google Assistant update.
Which countries are getting the update? The update will slowly roll out to several countries but for now, Google says that it is currently rolling out to the English language ones including U.S., Canada, Australia, and U.K. Later, the update will roll out with the local language support.
Note: We are not sure whether using a VPN will help you in changing the country and getting the update to have Google Assistant on your phone, but a little patience will surely do. Since this is not a brand-specific feature, you will see it coming to every Android phone having that OS version of Android Marshmallow or Android Nougat.
To check for the update, go to Settings > About > Software update and check manually if you don’t see an update popup already.
If you cannot wait and just want to try out Google Assistant, download Google Allo APK that comes with the Assistant feature as the main one to interact with you and learn things, automate some things.
