The Xperia Ear Duo's digital assistant will interrupt you with useful information when relevant, or when you invoke it using the touch panels on each Xperia Ear Duo headset. The left ear touch panel controls basic music playback controls, while the right can be configured for Google Assistant, Sony's own Anytime Talk feature for chatting to other Xperia Ear Duo users, event reminders, replying to messages or the daily assist feature, which gives you a rundown of the day ahead with a gesture.
Sony's assistant is certainly a chatty one, which you may find endearing, although it's a touch annoying that the only news sources it has (or had during my review period) were UK ones. Hopefully, Sony sorts this out relatively rapidly for Australian users as it's a feature that could work a lot better if it could deliver more than just local weather.
Like most Bluetooth headphones with touch panels, it can be a bit hit and miss for accuracy, especially for sliding your finger up and down either touch panel to adjust volume. A lot of the time, it interpreted the start of the gesture as a single tap or vice versa.
The Xperia Ear Duo's other method for keeping you from staring at your phone is the use of head gestures, such as a nod or shake to answer calls or reject them, respond yes or no to Google Assistant or skip music tracks.

The idea here is noble enough, but the implementation needs a lot of work. In my experience, it varies from super-sensitive to nowhere near sensitive enough. While driving with the Xperia Ear Duo in place, I've had it skip tracks back and forwards because I was turning corners. While out walking around and trying to specifically skip tracks, I've had to throw my neck around in a way that drew more than a few stares from folks who seemed certain that I was having some kind of fit. It's a clever idea, but it ultimately doesn't respond with enough precision to really appeal.
The Xperia Ear Duo works across both Android and iOS devices via Sony's free Xperia Ear Duo app, which is a mandatory installation to even get them to pair. Sony does note that iPhone users won't get quite the full array of features with the Xperia Ear Duo, and for the purposes of review, I've used them paired to a number of Android handsets.
The actual pairing process follows the relatively standard trick of pairing with the app as soon as you pop them out of the carrying case. If you do need to pair them with a new device, holding down on the touch panel on the side for five seconds or more will put them into pairing mode.
Because the Xperia Ear Duo isn't just a music headset, you've also got to sort out Sony's own digital assistant feature, which can perform a variety of spoken tasks for you. On Android, this involves giving it a lot of permissions to your personal contacts and information, and as always that's going to be a trade-off between your privacy and your desire for the Xperia Ear Duo to give you the most information possible.
Setting up Sony's assistant also involves a lengthy voice file download process, so it's wise to kickstart the process when you're in range of a Wi-Fi connection rather than doing so over costly mobile data.