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JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Welcome to "Assistant on Air"
season five where we have conversations about building
for Google Assistant.
I'm Jessica and I'll be your host today.
I'm a Developer Relations Engineer for Google Assistant.
And today we'll be chatting with Toni,
who's also a Developer Relations Engineer for Google Assistant.
Welcome Toni, and actually welcome River too.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, it's so great
to be here in-person with both of you.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: I know, right?
To be here on the same couch and be able to chat,
this is lovely.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: It really is, yeah.
It's a nice change instead of recording at home.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right.
Yeah.
I really appreciate being able to have the studio
and to have support folks who are professionals.
Though they did great over camera
to try to explain to us how to do things,
but this is way more nice.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, absolutely.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: So Toni, what do you do?
Tell me what's your day-to-day.
Kind of what's your role and how do you
work within the Google Assistant kind of world?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
So as you mentioned, Developer Relations Engineer,
just like yourself.
So we write a lot of code labs.
We update documentation.
We support the community on different channels,
presentations, all that kind of stuff.
And previously I was working on smart home Action.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right.
Still an Assistant, but yeah, you
are focused on the smart home kind of space.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah, which is
integrating the Assistant with your smart devices
in the house.
So a little bit different than the conversational design
that was all handled by the Assistant and the smart home
API.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right.
And now you've kind of-- well, you've
been with Assistant for a few years now.
So just like anyone else, we're kind of transitioning,
moving to different things.
So I believe you've also followed me
into the App Actions world.
So can you tell me a little bit about your role within App
Actions and what you're doing?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
So now on App Actions I'm focusing on the Assistant
with App Actions on Wear OS, which is wear devices, so
things like watches.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Sweet.
Yeah.
I love the watch.
And really, because it is on Android,
it's ran on Android, it's the same kind of functionality,
like you would do for a mobile app, right?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Absolutely.
Works very similarly.
There's some differences with the UX design
and how do you give user feedback and stuff like that
when they're trying to trigger the Assistant.
But otherwise, it works pretty much the same.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Great.
Yeah.
And what's nice is because it's on Android,
so let's say if you have a mobile app
and you've integrated App Actions,
it's not a lot of high learning curve for an Android developer,
right, with App Actions?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
So they can leverage a lot of the existing Android APIs
and translate that to whatever device type
they're trying to use.
So that includes things like TVs and auto, which
we're also working on, right?
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, definitely focused on auto
and how do you bring Voice into the car, because it makes
sense.
Why would you want to look at a screen versus talking
to a screen.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Absolutely.
It's a great safety feature.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right?
And so, it just brings me to the idea of Android
right now is on.
There's wearables, there's the TV, there's cars.
It's kind of-- there's a lot of devices a user would have
that already runs Android.
So what does Google Assistant, what's
its role within that space?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
So the Assistant acts like the glue.
So basically that means that a user
can go to any of those device types
and still have the same consistent voice forward
experience when they're engaging with their devices.
It just really makes it very easy for the users
to jump right into the relevant part of the app.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right.
And the users don't have to think about necessarily
am I talking to my watch, am I talking to my TV or my phone.
They're able to just operate and just--
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yep.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Do the "Hey, G"
and be able to get things done.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
They can use the exact same triggers
and say the same phrases regardless of the device
and make it happen.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, which is lovely.
Now a question, when it comes to--
I'm an Android developer.
What do I have to know or understand about Voice?
Because Voice is complex.
There's a lot to it when it comes
to processing the actual audio to matching it
to the natural language processing.
So you can match it to an intent and all that.
What information or how much understanding
of Voice development does an Android developer need to have?
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
So that's the great thing about Assistant on Android
and using things like the built-in intents and App
Actions, and plugging into those existing Android APIs
because we actually handle all that natural language
understanding for the developers.
So they don't have to spend time focusing on that.
They can just use these pre-defined triggers,
and focus more on the UX design, and actually focus
on those customer journeys as far as what is the path
that the user is going to follow in their app.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, which I love, because it's hard.
Voice is really hard.
And the fact that you can just identify,
OK, there are these set BIIs that exist,
which ones will match those user journeys,
and just be able to plug those in, and then
just create an Android intent.
So it magically just happens for the user.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Which is lovely.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
And the nice thing is too is the Assistant also understands what
capabilities the apps have by looking
at those built-in intents and the other features
that are included in that shortcut stock XML file.
So it's very easy to include those as a developer.
And then there are also ways, back-end tools
that we have that enable the Assistant to understand
if the user even has your app installed on their device.
And if they don't, the Assistant can actually
recommend that they install.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Yeah, that's actually fairly new, right?
Because our short-- using shortcuts on XML,
we announced it last I/O. And, of course, now, we're
working towards having it be available generally,
but this year, that's been new where, yeah, if someone says,
hey, G, start X, Y, Z," and the app isn't installed,
it will pull it up and go, hey, do you want to install it,
which is lovely.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
Yeah.
And that really helps with that app discovery side of things
too.
So that's a great benefit for developers and for users.
And then there's also the other feature, brandless queries.
So a developer-- a user, excuse me-- could say,
hey, start my whatever.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Start my Run, right?
And it can identify which apps support that BII and the user
could use it.
Yeah.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Exactly.
Or which apps the user typically uses for that kind of thing.
So it'll open it automatically.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right.
Oh, I love that.
Yeah.
So it sounds like Assistant and Android
are playing well together, which is really exciting to be
able to have that all together.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Yeah.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Well, thank you
so much Toni for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
TONI KLOPFENSTEIN: Absolutely.
It's been wonderful to be here.
And really enjoy getting to see you and River again.
JESSICA EARLEY-CHA: Right.
I know.
I love this.
Perfect.
Well, thank you so much.
And I hope you like today's show.
If you have suggestions on future episodes,
please leave a comment below.
Follow us on Twitter for updates and new episodes.
And don't forget to also sign up for our newsletter.
I've been Jessica.
Chat with you next time.
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