Assistant key remapping may be coming to the Google Pixelbook and Pixel Slate

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The Google Pixel Slate and Google Pixelbook feature a dedicated button that triggers Google Assistant functionality. The virtual assistant by Google is one of the best digital assistants available in the market right now, allowing for features like two-way conversations using Google’s natural language processing algorithms. With its wide availability across Android, Chrome OS, and other Google products, it is no surprise that it is also one of the most popular assistants right now.

However, preferences are subjective, and several consumers have their own reasons to not use Google Assistant or to not want the dedicated hardware button on the Pixelbook or the Pixel Slate to trigger it. In those scenarios, the dedicated button becomes useless and provides no meaningful contribution to your productivity or experience.

A recent commit to Chromium indicates that Google is considering allowing the Assistant hardware button to be remapped. The commit implements key remapping for the feature and adds in a feature flag to guard the feature until it can be rolled out widely.

Key remapping is not a new thing for the Chrome OS-based Pixel Slate and Pixelbook. Since the devices do not have a dedicated Caps Lock key (and instead use Alt + Search to toggle Caps Lock state), Google already allows a few keys (like the Search key) to be remapped as per the preferences of the user. To remap keys, go to Settings > Device > Keyboard and then use the menus to change how the keys work. Extending this option to the Assistant key is in line with how other OEMs like Samsung are now treating their own digital assistants and their dedicated hardware keys. Digital assistants are not for everyone, and it is good to see options that still allow the user to get the most out of the hardware.