Technology

Google Assistant can now make donations to charity

Written by Maimoona Khalid ·  1 min read >

Donating to a charity has never been easier than now. Google Assistant is now capable of donating money to your favorite charity if you ask it to.

According to 9to5google, Google Assistant quietly received a new feature that makes it incredibly easy to make donations. This feature works on smartphones, as well as, the smart speakers like the Google Home. All the user has to do is use their voice to give the donation command to the Google Assistant.

For example. saying “Hey Google, donate to charity” will begin the process of contribution. The Google Assistant will them ask users to name the charity they would like to donate to, and will suggest an average amount of $10 as a donation.

Users can even make commands like “Hey Google, donate $10 to Red Cross.” This will lead them instantly to the confirmation stage. This confirmation stage safeguards the donation process. After finalizing the amount and the charity, the money then goes to Network for Good. This is a non-profit organization that processes the donations made for different charities.

However, this feature currently only works in the U.S. Also, it can only be used if the payments feature is enabled in Assistant. The payments feature can be enabled in the “Personal info” tab on the Assistant settings. The users will have to add a credit/debit card, delivery address, and authentication method.

However, Google Assistant is not the only smart assistant that can make donations. Amazon’s Alexa has been equipped with this feature since April 2018. Now that this donation feature is available on both Google Assistant and Alexa, users can easily use voice commands to donate to their favorite charity in a matter of seconds.