The Google Assistant’s Personality

writing //  Experience design // Audio production // creative direction

Years ago, back when AI felt more like the world’s most expensive pull string doll, Google assembled a team to shape the personality for their soon-to-be-released Google Assistant. As they challenged Siri and Alexa, they wanted to live up to their reputation as a more creative, personable company than Apple and Amazon. One part of that equation would require jokes.

That’s how I found myself on a team with writers and experience designers from Pixar, Sesame Street, and other renowned creative institutions. We worked together (as part of the Doodles team) to mold a personality for this machine one query at a time.

Somewhere between 5-10% of prompts to Pixel phones and Google Home devices fall outside the categories of search or built-in tools like timer. Prompts like:

• “Tell me a joke”

• “What’s your favorite color?”

• “Who made you?”

• “Do you have a butt?”

By defining character principles and building a large body of answers to thousands of queries like these, we started to create a personality was was helpful, friendly, and optimistic. It was never human and never pretended to be, but it still had a sense of humor and used a robust sound library and its access to a whole world of information to bring more delight into the user experience.

Here are some articles about the team and philosophies behind the product (all written after I had left to develop a TV show).