Google launches AI bot to call businesses for you about prices and availability

Starting with nail salons and car mechanics.

Great for introverts, confusing for business owners.

Credit: Mashable composite: Google / Getty Images

For people who hate making mundane phone calls, Google has an AI solution.

On Thursday, the tech giant announced “Ask for me,” an experiment in its Search Labs testing ground for Google Search. The feature uses AI to call local businesses on your behalf and ask about pricing and availability. Currently, the feature works for calling nail salons and local mechanics for an oil change or other standard car maintenance, but according to the options menu, more businesses are coming soon. 

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Like the rest of the AI industry, Google is leaning more and more into agentic experiences — AI that can do things on your behalf. Automating information-gathering calls is just one of the ways it’s doing this. Google recently launched a Gemini tool that acts as a research assistant that can gather data for you from the web, and it debuted another Search Labs experiment that waits on hold for you when calling customer service.

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Its newest Gemini model is integrated with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Pixel phones, with features for pulling together information, creating calendar events, and sending messages.

If you’re enrolled in Search Labs, you can toggle on the experiment to test it. Note: By enrolling in Search Labs, you agree to share this data with Google to improve its AI models. Next, choose whether you’re looking for information about a nail salon or mechanic, and proceed to the next few steps about the services you’re looking for. Once you’ve added all the pertinent information, choose to receive a response via SMS or email, which takes up to 30 minutes. Easy peasy.

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For the receiving end of the call, that’s another story. The person who picks up the phone will receive an automated announcement from Google AI saying that it’s calling on behalf of a user. If the person hasn’t hung up yet — because my first reaction would be that it’s obviously spam — the AI will proceed to ask about pricing and availability. The receiver can then give the bot a response in a conversational manner, which it’s capable of understanding, and send its response to you.

When we tried it out, we got a response from Google 21 minutes later informing us about prices and availability for a manicure at a local nail salon. The Google bot also said they tried other salons but “couldn’t reach” them. Maybe they were busy, or maybe they were bewildered by the automated request.

Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master’s degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on Twitter at @cecily_mauran.

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