Google Assistant wants to lend a hand during the hectic holidays

The holiday season is a busy one for a lot of folks, and today, Google is positioning Google Assistant as something that can help with that. Google detailed five ways in which the Assistant can help during the madness of the holidays, launching some new features in the process. Chief among these features is new functionality with apps like Google Keep, Any.do, AnyList, or Bring!.

If you use any of those four apps, you can now use Google Assistant to create notes or lists with them. Those lists and notes will sync across any Assistant-enabled devices, including Smart Displays. To set up this functionality, you need to head into the "Services" tab in Google Assistant settings and then select the app you use in the "Notes and Lists" section.

Once that's done, you can create new notes and lists using Google Assistant, though Google says that the notes you created before connecting the two services won't show up in your provider's app. If you're creating a new list, you can say something like "Hey Google, create a holiday gift list," whereas if you already have a list created, you can add to it by saying "Hey Google, add bread to my shopping list," or something similar.

Google's blog post also mentions assignable reminders, which rolled out back in August. The company noted Assistant's photo finding and sharing capabilities by noting that users can search for photos from a given timeframe – "Hey Google, show me photos from this weekend," – then select the ones they like and share them with friends using voice commands.

As far as additional new features are concerned, you can now ask Google Assistant to search for podcasts by topic, which is a handy feature given the sheer number of ongoing podcasts there are these days. Finally, you can now install the Dunkin' app on your Android phone and use Google Assistant to order coffee and food by voice. All of these features are rolling out today, so take them for a spin if you need help with organization as we barrel toward the holidays.