Instead of just reminding yourself to do something, you’ll be able to send the reminder to someone else to do your bidding. This person has to be someone in your Google Contacts and, beyond that, they either have to be in your Google family group (which is limited to six people) or have their account linked to the Assistant-equipped IoT gadget you’re using at home. You can't send everyone in your contacts a reminder to do something—just people you’re close with or live in close quarters with.

In a demonstration last week, Google product managers Glenn Wilson and Shikha Kapoor ran through a few examples of how this could work. Kapoor used voice control to ask the Assistant on a Google smart display to remind Wilson to pick up the dry cleaning in the evening. The Google Assistant interpreted that as around 6 pm, though Kapoor said you could request that the reminder pop up at a specific time and that the Assistant can learn schedules over time. The reminder would then pop on on Wilson’s smartphone, or on his smart display at home.

The Assistant also taps into location data to surface a reminder when a person happens to be in the vicinity of the errand that needs to be completed. And, speaking of completed errands, you can also ask the Google Assistant which reminders have been checked off the list—again, either a welcome added convenience or a superb way to micromanage your household from afar.

Wilson noted that the Assignable Reminders feature isn’t enabled by any remarkable or new technological change but, rather, by a shift in how people are using devices that run Google Assistant. “The shift we’re seeing is that people are buying more and more communal devices—things like Google Home Mini speakers and Google Nest Hubs. Being able to associate people in that communal setting is what’s new over the past few years.”

Wilson added that privacy was one of the bigger concerns Google had before building these kinds of reminders on top of existing reminder features. Kids under 13, for example, have to be granted access to the Assistant on Google Home by adults in the household, and any user has the ability to block someone from sending them Assignable Reminders.

Beyond potential privacy pitfalls, though, there’s the ever-present question about what kind of impact these AI-supported interactions have on our very human relationships. And Google, having built what is arguably the most capable consumer-facing virtual assistant to date, is often the company that needs to answer these questions.