You Can Now Send Whatsapp Messages With “Google Now”

Between friends, family and work, we send dozens of messages a day. But there’s an easier way to do that than using your thumbs on tiny keyboards. Starting today, you can send messages using some of your favorite messaging apps on your Android by simply talking to Google, just like you can already do to send quick emails, Hangouts or text messages.

With the Google app on your Android, you can already say things like “Ok Google, send a text to Taylor: I’ll be in town for the weekend, want to meet up?”—the same way you can ask Google all your questions by voice on your phone. Now, you can do the same with some popular messaging apps.

Just say, “Ok Google, send a WhatsApp message to Joe”—after which you’ll get a prompt asking you to dictate your message. Or, you can do it all in one step: “Ok Google, send a Viber message to Josh: let’s do dinner tomorrow night.” In addition to WhatsApp and Viber, you can send voice messages via WeChat, Telegram and NextPlus (just make sure you have the latest version of both the messaging and the Google app). You’ll be able to do this in English initially (not only in the US though!) and we’ll be working to add more apps and languages in the future.

With all of us spending so much time in apps, we’ve been working to add new ways to surface the right content from your apps at the right time. Over the past few months, you may have seen Now cards from many of your favorite apps and new ways to also get things done across your apps by just asking Google something, like “Ok Google, Shazam this song” or “Show me apartments for rent near me on Zillow.” So type less and speak more—your thumbs will thank you.