Names are important. They are essentially part of what makes you, you. For the most part, we always want people to get them right. However, that’s not the case. Especially with Google Assistant. It’s frustrating when you’re trying to send a text or make a call and Google Assistant mispronounces or simply doesn’t recognize a contact. Google wants the Assistant to accurately recognize and pronounce people’s names as often as possible, especially those that are less common.

Teaching Google Assistant to recognize unique Names

The old way, which is still available for those who want it, requires you to spell out the way you want your name pronounced. The new method is pretty simple. All you have to do is say your name out loud, and Google will try to learn the pronunciation.

Starting over the next few days, you can teach Google Assistant to enunciate and recognize the names of your contacts the way you pronounce them. The Assistant will listen to your pronunciation and remember it, without keeping a recording of your voice. This means the Assistant will be able to better understand you when you say those names. It will also be able to pronounce them correctly. The feature will be available in English and we hope to expand to more languages soon. ~ Google

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Other features include more natural conversations and a better understanding of the context from the Assistant.

Like in any conversation, context matters and the Assistant needs to be flexible enough to understand what you’re referring to when you ask for help. To help with these kinds of conversational complexities, Google rebuilt Assistant’s NLU models.

This is so it can now more accurately understand context while also improving its “reference resolution”. Meaning it knows exactly what you’re trying to do with a command. Essentially, Google will be more understanding. That’s all we want.