The Google Home personal assistant , a voice-activated speaker powered by Google Assistant, arrived in stores in November with some neat tricks for travelers : the ability to suggest nearby restaurants, translate foreign words, convert currency, track flight status and answer fact-based queries such as, “How much does Global Entry cost?” Roughly six months later, it’s doing things it couldn’t before, like tracking flight prices, giving directions and providing same-day updates on traffic to airports. Anyone vaguely familiar with other personal virtual assistants, like Alexa from Amazon or Siri from Apple, knows that this technology is a work in progress. But I was impressed with how far Google Assistant and Google Home have come in a short period, and it’s not difficult to see them becoming a larger part of travelers’ lives in the near future.