How Google Assistant works..
Google Assistant helps millions of people around the world get things done more easily every day. Learn how Assistant works with content and services to help you find just what you’re looking for.
Selecting the best response
How Google Assistant helps you get things done
Google Assistant is ready to help you get things done, anytime, anywhere. When you ask a question or tell it to do something, Assistant wants to respond to your request in the most helpful way possible — whether you want assistance with everyday tasks, controlling smart home devices, enjoying music or games, communicating with friends and family, getting quick answers or local information, or many other things.
To accomplish this, Assistant needs to understand what you’re asking for, the intent behind your request, to find the best way to help you get that done. This goal is at the center of how Assistant works.
Learn more below about the main factors that help determine how Assistant understands and responds to your request:
Understanding your request
If you interact with Assistant by voice, our speech recognition technology converts your request to text. Next, Assistant analyzes the text, in combination with useful information such as recent requests or the type of device you are using, to identify possible interpretations.
How Google Assistant Actions are built
Google allows third-party developers and Google developers to build Actions for Google Assistant through its platform, Actions on Google. All developers who want to integrate with Actions on Google must agree to the applicable terms and policies. To make sure you have a high quality experience with Google Assistant, we review Actions submitted by developers for compliance with our policies before they can be published, and we re-review Actions each time they are updated.
We continually invest in developers by supporting them with the tools and capabilities they need to build helpful and engaging experiences through Assistant. All developers have access to our technical documentation to learn how to develop different types of Assistant experiences. Developers can also use the Actions console, which offers testing and release management tools, performance analytics, and integrations with Google Cloud services. We also make Google technologies available to developers to help them build successful Actions, including features for selling goods, promoting their Actions, and connecting users to their existing account information.
Some Action developers, including Google developers, may have access to resources and data not otherwise available to all developers, due to legal and privacy-related concerns, scalability issues, and considerations to protect Google’s confidential, proprietary information and business. For example, we occasionally make newer Assistant technology available to early adoption partners for testing and feedback, with the ultimate goal of bringing that technology to the rest of the developer community. These partners may be able to reserve their preferred invocation query phrase before they have submitted their Actions project to the platform for policy compliance review. We may also work with third-party partners and Google developers to build custom integrations with Assistant to create an improved experience for users, and as a first step toward creating a generalized solution for all developers.
Data access
Users trust Google with their personal information when they interact with Assistant, and we work hard to maintain that trust. While we share relevant data with developers so that they can build, deploy, and maintain rich experiences for Assistant users, we do so following the principles outlined in our Privacy Policy and we do not sell our users’ personal information to anyone. For instance, we may share with developers:
- Information that doesn’t identify users, such as:
- Aggregated and anonymized data about how users interact with a developer’s Action. For example, Actions on Google developers can view analytics data through the Actions Console.
Discovering what Google Assistant can do
To help you discover the full range of Assistant experiences, or Actions, we promote various kinds of requests that Assistant can handle.
Many Actions work with apps, content, or services from third-parties or Google to provide you with helpful experiences. We promote Actions on the Google Assistant website, in Assistant, and elsewhere to help you discover more personalized experiences, based on a number of factors like:
- Popularity of an Action and the quality of its experience, based on how satisfied previous users were with that Action.
- Relevance of the Action to you. For example, certain Actions may be featured in your “You Might Like” section on Assistant, based on information we collect when you use Google’s services, like your previous Google Search queries or apps you’ve installed on your Android phone.
- Intended audience for an Action, which may include your country location, preferred language, device type, or you if have requested Actions intended for children.
In addition, we may highlight Actions provided by Google and our partners so that you know how to access high-quality experiences more easily. For instance, we may promote within Assistant, in mobile notifications, and in marketing emails the specific phrases that you can ask Assistant, like “Hey Google, play jazz music.” We may also highlight certain Actions based on the types of apps you’ve installed, like games, or apps for managing smart home devices, and our partnerships with app developers. If you use a device that comes with Assistant already built in, we may promote Actions from that partner because they are often the best way to fulfill Assistant requests on that device.
