How to access Google Now cards with Google Assistant

Ben Schoon | Mar 9 2017 - 7:16 am PT

Google Assistant is available on (or rolling out to) almost any Android smartphone at this point, and despite Google’s efforts to round out the experience of using Assistant, it’s still a jarring experience when coming from Google Now on Tap. Since the rollout started, one of the biggest questions I’ve seen is how to access Google Now cards with Google Assistant, so let’s take a closer look.

With Google Now on Tap, accessing Google is as easy as tapping the Google icon beneath your Now on Tap results. Tapping that immediately pulled up the classic Google Now cards, giving you quick and relevant information at a glance.

With Google Assistant, things are a little less straightforward. Assistant is designed to be a voice-first, one-stop place to answer questions or use commands. Thus, accessing your Google Now cards requires a slightly different process, and there are one of two ways to do this.

You can use the Google app on its own. This is as straightforward as it sounds. Simply head into your app drawer, scroll around and find the Google Search application. Once you’ve opened that, you’ll immediately see your Google Now cards.
You can use Google Assistant to launch the Google app. Simply activate Google Assistant with a quick “OK Google” voice command, or by long pressing the home button. Then, say “open Google.” Do keep in mind you can’t say “open Google Now,” since the app itself is simply entitled Google.

Finally, you can make it easy to access Google Now by using it on your launcher. Obviously, you can add a shortcut to Google Now by putting the Google app on your homescreen, but you can also have it directly integrated using something like the Pixel Launcher or the soon-to-be-killed Google Now Launcher. Alternatively, you can use gestures to add a shortcut in third-party launchers like Nova Launcher and Action Launcher 3.