“Hey Google, send Brian $15 for breakfast today.” Starting today, you can use this command to tell the Google Assistant on your phone to send money to people with Google Pay, the re-branded version of what you may still think of as Android Pay. And if Brian, as usual, forgets to pay you back, you can also say: “Hey Google, request $20 from Brian for breakfast today.”
For now, this feature is only available on phones, but Google tells us that it plans to offer the same functionality through its Google Home speakers in the coming months. One of the reasons for this is probably the fact that the phone offers a more secure process for authenticating who you are. On the phone, Google will ask for either a password or a fingerprint to make sure who are who you say you are. Google Home can already recognize different speakers, but for now, it’s unclear how Google will securely authenticate users there.
Since quite a few people probably don’t have Google Pay set up yet, the Assistant will walk you through the setup process when you first try this feature. Sending and receiving money through Google Pay is free.
