Google Assistant, thenew intelligent, conversational virtual assistant, is sadly only officially available fortheir new Pixel phones.

Google Assistant, once you try it, is incredibly useful.

you might also have complex conversations with your phone.

All yourold favorite voice commandsare still there, but the whole experience is way nicer.

If youre comfortable tweaking your phone, its well worth trying it out.

What Youll Need

Surprisingly, getting Google Assistant on your phone is easier than you think.

Well change it so that when a program asks What phone are you?

it responds Im a Pixel XL!

instead of whatever phone you have.

Its a simple tweak with minimal risk.

Check outour guide here on how to root your phoneif you havent done so already.

Well focus onour favorite file manager Solid Explorer.

Download them before continuing.

Note, this isnt the same as rooting your phone, but it still requires a little technical know-how.

Our guide to rootingexplains the difference and how to get started.

Custom Recovery or Fastboot (Method #2):Youll need a way to flash your .zip files.

If you have a custom recovery on your phone already, you’re able to use that.

As long as youre comfortable with the risk, proceed!

You canread more about it here.

after you grab all of the items listed above, adhere to these instructions:

Open Solid Explorer.

(your preferred root file explorer app may have slightly different steps).

If you havent enabled root storage, slide out the left-hand panel and tap the prefs gear icon.

Scroll to the bottom and enable Show root storage.

Slide out the left-hand navigation panel and tap Root.

Scroll down and tap System.

After the app restarts, you should be able to activate Google Assistant by long-pressing your home button.

You have a Pixel-exclusive feature before the phones even out.

Avoiding root may be handy if you want to get early updates throughthe Android Beta Program.

XDA usermjp93recommends uninstalling the Google app entirely before proceeding with this method.

Download thethree .zip files from this linkand copy them to your phones internal storage.

Reboot your phone into recovery mode.

Tap or navigate to Install in your custom recovery.

Install GoogleAssistantVelvet.zip

Install GoogleAssistantBuildProp.zip

Reboot your phone.

From there, find Google, then tap Permissions and activate the necessary permissions.

Once again, long-press the home button to bring up Assistant.