Google believes that a digital assistant will be truly useful when it can understand the people, places, and events that are important to individual users. In the coming months, Assistant will better comprehend these references through Personal Connections. For example, after a user informs Assistant who in their contact list is mom, they can ask more natural questions like, "What's the weather like at mom's house this weekend?" Or, "Remind me to order flowers a week before my sister's birthday." A person will always have control over their personal information and can add, edit, or delete details at any time on the 'You' tab in Assistant's settings.
Overall, Google Assistant will have a better understanding of users and will be able to offer more useful suggestions. Later this summer, smart displays like the new will feature a function called 'Your Picks', which will gather personalized recommendations starting with recipes, events, and podcasts. So, if a user previously searched for Mediterranean recipes, the assistant might suggest relevant dishes when it receives a dinner recommendation request. Assistant also takes contextual cues into account (like the time of day) when processing such requests, providing breakfast recipes in the morning and dinner recipes in the evening.
Moreover, Assistant will generally be more user-friendly and will not require users to say "Okay, Google" every time before a command. Starting today, users will have the ability to stop a timer or alarm simply by saying, "Stop." This feature works locally on the device and is activated by saying "Stop" after an alarm or timer goes off. This was one of our most requested features and is already available on Google smart speakers and displays in English-speaking countries around the world.
Additionally, during the I/O 2019 developer conference, Google made several other announcements regarding the voice assistant: including the , which will be very fast due to its local processing on the device, and , and .
