Google Assistant’s Guest mode for Nest speakers will let you go incognito

It’s already pretty easy to ask Google Assistant to forget what you just said, or to forget all your conversations for the day. Soon, though, there will be an easy way to keep the Assistant from remembering what you said in the first place.

Google just announced that Guest mode is coming to Nest speakers and other Google Assistant-enabled devices in the “coming weeks.”

You’ll be able to activate Guest mode by giving the Assistant a voice command (Google didn’t reveal what the exact command is yet), and while Guest mode is on, Google Assistant won’t remember anything you say.

A second command will disable Guest mode, at which point the Assistant will resume saving your interactions with it.

The upcoming Guest mode feature could come in handy if you want to keep a specific conversation with the Assistant private, or if you want to chat with Google on a Nest speaker in someone else’s home.

Guest mode is also reminiscent of incognito mode on Google’s Chrome browser, which keeps Chrome from tracking your browsing history, storing site cookies and data, and saving any information you typed into a web form.

While Guest mode isn’t ready for prime time yet, it’s still easy to delete a conversion with Google Assistant after the fact.

For example, you can say “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you” to make the Assistant forget the last thing you said.

You can also say “OK Google, delete my last conversation” to wipe your most recent chat with it, or “Hey Google, delete today’s activity” or even “Hey Google, delete this week’s activity.”

If you dive into the Google Assistant settings, you can set the Assistant to automatically delete voice recordings after a set period of time (either three months or 18 months).

Finally, you can nuke every stored interaction you’ve ever had with Google Assistant from the Google Home app. Just tap your user icon in the top corner of the screen, then tap Assistant settings> Your data in the Assistant> Assistant activity> Delete activity by> All time.

Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart home and home entertainment products.