Soon you’ll be able to pay friends by saying ‘Ok Google’
Google will make it harder for that friend in your group to make excuses when chipping in for food. The tech titan’s voice assistant will be able send personal payments for you in the coming months, just like its rival Siri can, so long you’re in the US. Simply tell it to “Send John $10 for pizza” or something similar and authenticate the transaction with your fingerprint or password to send cash. Your recipient will then receive an email about your payment. The big G recently tweaked its API to make any card associated with your account available on all its apps and on third-party applications that use Google Payments. That’s why all you need to do to be able send cash through Assistant is to link a debit card to your system.
Google has also introduced a new way to get offers from your favorite stores. Android Pay will soon show you offers from merchants whose loyalty cards are linked to your account whenever you walk into their shops. One of the first participating companies is Panera Bread, which plans to roll out the capability all over the country. In addiiton, whenever you apply for a loyalty card using your phone number, you’ll get a notification that’ll make it easier to link it to Android Pay for future visits.
Folks in Brazil, Canada, Russia, Spain and Taiwan might be able to enjoy some of these non-US-exclusive features, as well, since Google plans to deploy Android Pay in those countries. Finally, Mountain View promises a streamlined mobile checkout experience for PayPal users, so keep an eye out if you’d rather pay for purchases using your PayPal funds. 
For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2017, follow along here.
(44)
