Gboard’s Assistant Voice Typing Toolbar Is Coming To Pixel Phones

After introducing on the Pixel Tablet last year, Gboard’s Assistant voice typing toolbar is now available on Google phones.

Starting Assistant voice typing on Pixel phones will reveal a new “Toolbar” button (two downward arrows) next to the microphone. This will replace the full keyboard with a pill-shaped bar that lets you dictate text while seeing more of the screen.

The mic remains at the right with a delete key next to it. A hamburger button at the left lets you access:

Settings
Show voice commands
Show clipboard
Show translate
Show emoji
Switch to vertical toolbar
Feedback

A button to bring back the keyboard and “Speak now” or “Paused” prompt rounds out this UI. You’re able to move this bar to the side of your screen as a vertical pill if you want more space.

Notably, this toolbar is persistent and remains active the next time you open a text field until you manually bring back the keyboard.

The Assistant voice typing toolbar started appearing for Pixel Tablet owners last January, with Google officially announcing it with the March 2024 Feature Drop: “…optimizing screen space and making multitasking easy.”

As of today (via Android Authority) with the latest Gboard beta (version 15.0), Pixel phone owners are now seeing the Assistant voice typing toolbar. This is not yet widely rolled out.