Google has removed its ‘Your News Update’ personalised audio digest feature from Assistant.
The tech giant has removed the feature to “streamline” its audio news products, a Google spokesperson has said, as per a 9to5Google report.
“We’re streamlining our audio news products to improve users’ experience. People will still be able to get audio briefings through News Briefings on Google Assistant,” the spokesperson said as quoted by the report.
The feature was originally launched in 2019. Your News Update was an attempt at providing a personalised algorithmic feed for audio news, similar to those that had been successful on Facebook or other areas of Google’s products.
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The feature was an upgrade of Assistant’s “play me the news” capability with personalised audio digests.
Google had described it as “a mix of short news stories chosen in that moment based on your interests, location, user history and preferences, as well as the top news stories out there”.
Google has now removed Your News Update feature. Users are also seeing messages announcing the update when they access the News section within Google Assistant settings. It only offers the “News briefing” option, as per the report.
“Your News Update is no longer available, but you can still get the latest news from your favourite shows by adding them here,” reads the message as quoted by the report.
It has also been removed from the Google Podcasts Explore tab.
