We’ve been hearing a ton of new details lately regarding the upcoming launch of Google Assistant on Chrome OS, and recently, more and more moves are being made behind-the-scenes to prepare for the change. Today, it’s been discovered that Google has tossed out the current hotword support on Chromebooks to make way for the Assistant.

ChromeUnboxed discovered that Google has recently been working in the background on deprecating Chrome OS’ current setup process for “OK Google” hotword support. If you’re a Chromebook user and didn’t know this was a feature, I don’t blame you for a second. Google has this feature buried in the settings and doesn’t advertise it at all, but it is a nice addition nonetheless.

With it disappearing, though, it begs the question as to why. While Google could simply be removing it for lack of use, the likelihood that it is being removed for Google Assistant seems far more likely. If you ask me, I’d bet that Google is planning to revive this feature as something tied to Google Assistant, allowing users to access the Assistant on their Chrome OS machine just like they do on an Android smartphone.

Of course, there’s still the matter that saying “OK Google” can activate quite a lot of Google devices, including Google Home, so there has to be an alternative way to launch the Assistant, right? Luckily there is, as Google has also recently been working on adding a shortcut for this functionality with Search + A. It will be exciting to see where this all leads, and how exactly Google will implement the Assistant on Chrome OS. Hopefully, more details will arrive with the upcoming “Eve” Chromebook.

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