WTF. Google has just set up a chatbot to call businesses for you, meaning LOTS of extra AI calls for them to answer. [View all]

[highplainsdem]

https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/30/googles-ask-for-me-feature-calls-businesses-on-your-behalf-to-inquire-about-services-pricing/

Google is testing a new “Ask for Me” feature that uses AI to call local businesses on your behalf, for information about availability and pricing. The feature is available on desktop and mobile for users who have opted into the company’s Search Labs experiments.

The idea is to help users access information without having to actually pick up the phone and talk to someone.

No, no need at your end - but this may force small businesses to get a chatbot to answer calls from chatbots, which will mean humans calling the business will also have to deal with a chatbot first, unless the humans at the business deal with all the chatbot calls instead of resorting to AI themselves.

Judging by the screenshots with the article, it's impossible to tell whether Google's bot will automatically call every local business offering a particular service (the example shown was oil changes near Ridgeway NJ) or force users to choose specific businesses offering oil changes to call...and maybe set a limit on how many to call.

Google is testing a new “Ask for Me” feature that uses AI to call local businesses on your behalf, for information about availability and pricing. The feature is available on desktop and mobile for users who have opted into the company’s Search Labs experiments.

The idea is to help users access information without having to actually pick up the phone and talk to someone.

Chatbots are notorious for getting things wrong. You really can't depend on them to get correct information, and two chatbots communicating will not lead to more accuracy.

But this will make for a lot more phone calls....