What if you could tell someone, in one tap, that your call really needs their attention — and have the phone respect that? Google is testing exactly that with a new addition to Phone by Google called Call Reason, part of a broader Expressive Calling package that’s beginning to reach beta users.
What it does
Call Reason lets you attach a simple priority label — right before you dial — so the person on the other end sees a clear signal that the call is urgent. When the feature is active you may see a “Mark call as urgent?” card on the calling screen with a Notify or Urgent option. On the recipient’s phone the incoming screen can show an “It’s urgent!” message (some testers report an animated siren emoji), and if they miss the call an “urgent” badge will remain in their call history.Crucially, the feature can be set to let those urgent calls override Do Not Disturb, but that override is opt-in for the recipient. You don’t have to allow every caller to break through your quiet time; there’s a toggle in Phone Settings > General > Expressive Calling that controls whether urgent labels can interrupt DND. The broader Expressive Calling preference — “Enhance calling with visual and haptic feedback” — appears enabled by default for testers.
Who can use it (and what you’ll need)
Right now this is a staged beta. Reports indicate both parties generally need to be running the Phone by Google beta (some mentions point to version 203 or the Android QPR2 builds) and the contact must be saved in your address book for the badge to show. Because many manufacturers ship their own dialer apps (Samsung being the most prominent example), not everyone will see the option even with the latest Phone app installed — and some users with up-to-date Pixels still report the toggle hasn’t arrived, implying a server-side rollout.Why Google is doing this — and why people worry
Do Not Disturb is great until it isn’t. There are real moments when a call must get through: a caregiver on call, a child’s school nurse, a last-minute travel change. Call Reason gives callers a way to add context without sending a separate message. It’s an evolution of features like contact exceptions or repeat-caller rules that already exist on Android.But any system that lets callers signal urgency invites potential abuse. Will people mark everything as urgent? Google has existing spam detection layers and tools such as Verified Calls for businesses; initial signals suggest Call Reason is meant for personal contacts and gated by opt-in behavior. Recipients keep control, though: they can choose to see call reasons without allowing urgent calls to pierce DND.
How to check it on your phone
If you want to try it, open the Phone by Google app and look under Settings > General for Expressive Calling. If you don’t see it, you may not be in the server-side beta yet, you might not be using Phone by Google as your default dialer, or your device/firmware build isn’t part of the early rollout.Google’s approach here fits a larger pattern of adding context-aware features to Android — think of recent experiments that fold AI and new UI affordances into everyday apps, like the company’s work integrating Gemini into Maps and other services, or small on-device UI tests such as floating controls for Search Live /news/google-maps-gemini-ai-copilot and /news/google-search-live-controls.
Expect the rollout to be slow and iterative. If Google tightens the guardrails — only allowing saved contacts, throttling repeated urgent flags, and leaning on spam detection — Call Reason could help calls feel less random and more useful. Left unchecked, though, it risks becoming another badge people ignore.
If you try the feature, think about using urgent sparingly. When timed right, a small label can save a panicked callback or an all-night scramble; used too often, it just becomes noise.