Hold music could one day be a thing of the past thanks to a service coming to Google's smartphones. Hold for Me, which launches on Thursday in the US for owners of Google's Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a phones, involves Google's AI tools taking over as an automatic secretary when on hold to a call centre, leaving the user free to put down the phone and carry on with their life. The service will listen out for when the call is picked up and send a notification when it's time for the user to get back on the phone. In the meantime, Google's assistant will ask the call centre to hold, hopefully stopping them from hanging up because of dead air. "Every business's hold loop is different and simple algorithms can't accurately detect when a customer support representative comes on to the call," Google's Andrew Goodman and Joseph Cherukara said.

Hold music could one day be a thing of the past, thanks to a service coming to Google's smartphones. "Hold For Me", which launches on Thursday in the US for owners of Google's Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a phones, involves Google's AI tools taking over as an automatic secretary when on hold to a call centre, leaving the user free to put the phone down and carry on with their life. The service will automatically listen out for when the call is picked up, and send a notification when it's time for the user to get back on the phone. In the meantime, Google's assistant will ask the call centre to hold, hopefully stopping them from hanging up because of dead air. "Every business's hold loop is different and simple algorithms can't accurately detect when a customer support representative comes on to the call," Google's Andrew Goodman and Joseph Cherukara said.