What are virtual assistants?

A virtual assistant is like a helpful friend who lives on your phone or tablet and can do tasks for you.

Imagine you have a toy robot that listens when you talk to it, that's kind of what a virtual assistant does, but on a screen instead of with gears and lights.

A virtual assistant uses your voice or the words you type to understand what you want. For example, if you say "Play my favorite song," it knows to find that song and play it, just like how your mom might know to give you a cookie when you ask for one.

You might have heard of Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa. These are all names of virtual assistants. They can do things like:

• Set alarms
• Send messages
• Tell the weather
• Play games

They're not magic, just really smart, kind of like how your favorite teacher knows when you need help with math.