Pixel 8 may let you instantly reply to incoming notifications through Google Assistant

Getting Google Assistant to do something can be a chore when it struggles to recognize your voice, but it's also annoying that you have to say "Hey, Google" to get the Assistant's attention nearly every time you want to do something. If you have a Nest Hub Max, you can use the "quick phrases" feature to skip saying "Hey, Google" for many basic tasks. Quick phrases are also available on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series, but you're limited to just snoozing/dismissing alarms or timers as well as answering or declining incoming calls. Soon, however, a third quick phrase might be added to the mix: notification voice replies.

While digging through the Android 13 QPR betas a while back, I discovered a SystemUI flag called INSTANT_VOICE_REPLY. This flag can be seen in the SystemUI "Flags" class in AOSP, but it isn't referenced anywhere else in AOSP, so I put this discovery on the back burner. Recently, however, I decided to look into this again and discovered that this flag is actually referenced by code exclusive to SystemUIGoogle, Google's fork of SystemUI for Pixel phones.

It appears that Google is adding a new API in SystemUI called NotificationVoiceReply. This API seems to let an app insert replies directly into a notification (provided the app that posted the notification supports the direct reply action). In addition, it seems this API can only be called by a single app: the Google App (com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox). The API checks the package name of the app calling it as well as the certificate used to sign the package to ensure that only the Google App can utilize it.

Classes for this feature can be found under the com.google.android.systemui namespace rather than com.android.systemui namespace, which is why I believe this feature will be exclusive to Pixel devices.

As for how this feature ties in to quick phrases, SystemUIGoogle has code to show a CTA (call to action) that will inform the user about the feature's availability. The CTA has an icon of the Google Assistant (ic_assist_poodle) as well as the following strings:

<string name="voice_reply_cta_text">"Hey Google, reply"</string>

<string name="voice_reply_quick_phrase_cta_text">Say "Reply"</string>

These strings, as well as the code referencing this CTA, suggest there will be two ways to use notification voice replies: Either through the "Hey, Google" hotword followed by "reply" or just by saying "reply" after a notification has been received.

So tl;dr: Google is working on a new Assistant quick phrase that will let you say "reply" after a notification has been received so you can quickly dictate your response using your voice. You can kind of already do this (minus skipping "Hey, Google") when using Assistant on Android Auto or on headphones, but otherwise, you need to specifically direct Assistant to send a message to a particular contact.

As for why this is using a new API and not the existing Notification Listener API, I'm not really sure. One reason could be that the Google App has to ask the user to grant it Notification Listener access, whereas this API, because it's restricted to just one package, doesn't need to request a permission.

I'll keep an eye out for more details on this feature. My guess is that it'll launch with the Pixel 8 or perhaps the December 2023 Pixel Feature Drop, though I don't see any code for it in current builds of the Google App.

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Update 10/21/2023 @ 3:24 PM CT: I've updated this post with a screenshot showing off the CTA mentioned before. This CTA informs the user of this new feature.  Once this rolls out, you'll be able to simply say "Hey Google, reply" to type out a reply via voice.