Google’s Pixel phones will soon save transcripts of screened calls

Google's Call Screen feature has been a boon to Pixel 3 owners wary of tedious telemarketing calls. Instead of taking your chances on an incoming 'Scam Likely' call, you can just get Google Assistant to answer for you. One of the major criticisms of the service, though, is that once the call is complete, the transcript of the conversation disappears. So unless you managed to grab a screenshot of the transcript, or were paying attention to the screen during the call, you'd have nothing to refer to later beyond a caller number. None of this is really conducive to fuss-free spam filtering. But Google has been paying attention to feedback, and it seems that Call Screen transcripts are on the way.

According to Google's support forums, transcripts will be enabled "later this year," and will automatically be saved to the dialer app after the call, for later viewing. As Google employee Paul Dunlop said in response to a forum query: "The transcript for the screened portion of the call will be automatically saved in your Call Log once the call has ended. You will be able to access it via the Call Details section of an individual call log item. This will be available to our public beta testers first, and then all Pixel 3 users later in the year." And eventually, Pixel and Pixel 2 phones, which are starting to get the Call Screening feature now, too. Undoubtedly, most transcripts will prove as unexciting as the spam calls themselves, but this feature at least provides peace of mind that you're definitely not missing anything important.