The Google Pixel 5 will sit through hold music for you

Hold music is probably one of the worst parts of most phone calls these days. You have to make an important phone call, but it's really not convenient to wait for someone to pick up, especially when you don't know if you'll be there for 10 minutes or 45 minutes.

Well, Google can't fix the inconsistent hold times, but with the Pixel 5 (and Pixel 4a) you won't have to wait it out with annoying music in your ear.

Hold For Me on Pixel 5

So here's how the new feature works in the Google phone app. Using AI, if you're placed on hold with a business, you can ask Google Assistant to sit through the queue for you.

It'll listen in and detect when someone picks up on the other end, then give you an alert letting you know that the customer service representative is ready to help you. Google says people in the US spent 10 million hours on hold last week, so this stands to save a ton of time.

Hold For Me is powered by Google's Duplex technology, which means it's much smarter than your typical algorithm that would struggle to tell the difference between a recorded voice line and a real person answering the phone. It doesn't completely take you out of the equation, though, with alerts on screen and transcriptions of what's going on.

Google is rolling out an early preview of this on the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a, although it will inevitably roll out to other Android devices later on. But if you're picking up Google's new phones early, you'll have a cool new trick to show off.

Read more: Google

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