3 new ways to help attraction and tour operators reach more travelers

Traveling can be a source of joy and excitement, especially when meaningful experiences are involved. In the last year, we’ve seen searches for “fun activities” reach an all-time high in the U.S. That’s why we’re continuing to make it easier for people to discover things to do on Google, and for businesses to connect with these new potential customers as they plan their trips.

Compare ticket prices on Google Maps

Last year, we began showing ticket booking links on Search when people look for attractions, like the Boston Tea Party Museum, to help them quickly compare admissions prices across different partners. Now, this ticket information is available on Google Maps as well, where travelers often plan their itinerary for the day.

Two phone mocks showing ticket information in Maps. The first shows Tickets in the Overview tab. The second shows the Tickets tab.

Compare ticket prices right in Google Maps.

We’re also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction, like a combined Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. This feature is currently available on Search and will also be available soon on Maps.

Screenshot of a search for "Boston Tea Party Ship &...". The Experiences section shows various options including a trolley tour and a self-guided tour.

We are also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction.

In the near future, we’ll also begin displaying booking links for tour and activity operators on their Search and Maps listings when people query their business name, like “John’s London Bike Tours.”

Edit ticket prices directly through Google Business Profile

Attraction, tour, and activity operators can work with an approved connectivity partner to provide travelers with the most up-to-date pricing information through a feed integration. Beginning today, attraction owners can also directly edit their ticket prices on Search and Maps through their Business Profile, and this functionality will soon be available for tour and activity operators as well.

Gif showing the form to add a ticket.

Attraction owners can directly edit their ticket prices through their Business Profile.

Help even more customers find you

Last year we introduced a new ad format on Search that helps advertisers stand out and drive more revenue by showing details like pricing, images and reviews when people search for things to do. Now, this ad unit has expanded coverage to include more countries and languages and is eligible to appear on individual attraction listings on mobile Search. These ads can be set up using the same data feeds that power the free ticket booking links on Search and Maps, so it’s easy to get started.

Two phone mocks showing ads. The first shows a search for "Things to do in boston" with Tickets & tours ads in the results. The second shows a search for "Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum" with the specific "Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum" location showing in the results and an ad for a tour above it.

Ads expanded coverage to appear on even more search results.

Register here for our Travel on Air Webinar to learn about these new tools and more to help you connect with potential customers.

3 new ways to help attraction and tour operators reach more travelers

Traveling can be a source of joy and excitement, especially when meaningful experiences are involved. In the last year, we’ve seen searches for “fun activities” reach an all-time high in the U.S. That’s why we’re continuing to make it easier for people to discover things to do on Google, and for businesses to connect with these new potential customers as they plan their trips.

Compare ticket prices on Google Maps

Last year, we began showing ticket booking links on Search when people look for attractions, like the Boston Tea Party Museum, to help them quickly compare admissions prices across different partners. Now, this ticket information is available on Google Maps as well, where travelers often plan their itinerary for the day.

Two phone mocks showing ticket information in Maps. The first shows Tickets in the Overview tab. The second shows the Tickets tab.

Compare ticket prices right in Google Maps.

We’re also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction, like a combined Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour. This feature is currently available on Search and will also be available soon on Maps.

Screenshot of a search for "Boston Tea Party Ship &...". The Experiences section shows various options including a trolley tour and a self-guided tour.

We are also starting to show booking links for experiences connected to a particular attraction.

In the near future, we’ll also begin displaying booking links for tour and activity operators on their Search and Maps listings when people query their business name, like “John’s London Bike Tours.”

Edit ticket prices directly through Google Business Profile

Attraction, tour, and activity operators can work with an approved connectivity partner to provide travelers with the most up-to-date pricing information through a feed integration. Beginning today, attraction owners can also directly edit their ticket prices on Search and Maps through their Business Profile, and this functionality will soon be available for tour and activity operators as well.

Gif showing the form to add a ticket.

Attraction owners can directly edit their ticket prices through their Business Profile.

Help even more customers find you

Last year we introduced a new ad format on Search that helps advertisers stand out and drive more revenue by showing details like pricing, images and reviews when people search for things to do. Now, this ad unit has expanded coverage to include more countries and languages and is eligible to appear on individual attraction listings on mobile Search. These ads can be set up using the same data feeds that power the free ticket booking links on Search and Maps, so it’s easy to get started.

Two phone mocks showing ads. The first shows a search for "Things to do in boston" with Tickets & tours ads in the results. The second shows a search for "Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum" with the specific "Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum" location showing in the results and an ad for a tour above it.

Ads expanded coverage to appear on even more search results.

Register here for our Travel on Air Webinar to learn about these new tools and more to help you connect with potential customers.

4 Googlers on coming out at work — and in life

Every year, National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is on October 11. We’ve made enormous strides for equality and acceptance since the inception of NCOD 34 years ago. Yet even in 2022, sharing one’s sexuality and gender identity can be a challenge for many members of the LGBTQ+ global community for a variety of cultural, political, religious and personal reasons. In many parts of the world, coming out continues to be a deeply courageous act of LGBTQ+ activism.

Be it in one’s community or in the workplace, coming out is the first step to living authentically and having pride in one’s identity. Google is committed to creating a culture of inclusion that supports all of our employees around the world, including members of the LGBTQ+ community – no matter how they identify.

A key part of creating a workplace that recognizes and celebrates diversity is offering a platform where people can share stories about their personal experiences and truths. We want to extend an enormous thanks to the four Googlers who have opened up to share their stories for this year’s National Coming Out Day. These stories represent just a small fraction of Google’s diverse and vibrant LGBTQ+ community.

“Coming in” before coming out

Jean Illyria (she/her), who works in our Singapore office with Google Customer Solutions, says she first used technology to come out as a trans woman. “If you’ve ever played a role-playing game, you’d know how it feels to experience the world through this third-person view, responding to events and making decisions for your virtual character based on a story you’ve crafted for them,” she says. “The experiences you have are real, the emotions you feel may be real, but it’s all very much unreal. My life felt like a game, so naturally, I first came out while chatting in a game. The anonymity and the appearance of my virtual person seemed to make it much easier.”

Ever since surrounding herself with people who accept and support her, Jean has been able to focus on living life to the fullest. “Coming out may seem like a huge milestone and a rite of passage for LGBT folks, but don’t come out just for the sake of coming out,” she says. “Instead, focus on what coming out would do for you, and consider the costs and benefits of doing so for your individual situation. Start by prioritizing what’s been dubbed as ‘coming in’: Learn to accept, embrace and celebrate your identity for yourself.”

I'm a better employee, teammate, and manager because I can be my authentic self at work.

Coming out at work

California-based Googler Marnie Florin (any gender-neutral pronouns, such as they/them and ze/zir), who works in people operations, first came out as queer and then as nonbinary. Because Marnie uses gender-neutral pronouns, they need to come out to every new person they meet to avoid being misgendered. For Marnie and many nonbinary people, being misgendered is painful; it pulls them out from what they're doing and creates feelings of disconnection and rejection simply because of who they are. This is especially taxing when working at a large company, which is just one example of why allyship is so important.

It took two months for Marnie to come out when they joined Google in 2014. “I agonized over how to do it: Should I tell everyone in person, should I have my manager do it, should I let people find out organically? Ultimately, I decided to send an email to my larger team and the responses were so incredible,” they say. “It was so freeing to stop hiding such a significant part of my identity. I'm a better employee, teammate, and manager because I can be my authentic self at work.”

Deciding when the time is right

Working in London, Nayem Chowdhury (he/him) is from a traditional Muslim immigrant family and worried about coming out. He says he spent so much energy hiding his true self — energy he believed he could otherwise spend enjoying life.

“It’s particularly hard to manage different levels of authenticity at work and in your personal life, so it was very liberating to come out at Google,” he says. “In fact, I was out at work first. It’s given me access to so many amazing people and opportunities through LGBTQ+ employee resource groups, and it gave me the confidence to come out to my parents.”

Nayem says it’s crucial people come out only when the time is right for them, and not feel pressured to do so. “Go at your own pace and do it your own way,” he says. “I regret not coming out to my parents sooner as I thought I had to do it face-to-face, but I kept putting it off. I eventually did it over email, which suited me much better.”

Learn to accept, embrace and celebrate your identity for yourself.

Being an example to others

Googler Guilherme Saconatto (he/him), who works in Brazil as an account executive, said he didn’t know just how much he yearned for community and felt like he was compartmentalizing his identity before coming out. “Before coming out, you don’t realize how lonely you are with your secret,” he says. But when he came out to his close friends and they were supportive, he says, “It felt like being welcomed into a new world.”

Guilherme says coming out doesn’t just affect an individual — it impacts the LGBTQ+ community around the world. “There is nothing more freeing and rewarding than being able to remain faithful to ourselves at all times,” he says. “The queer community needs our heroes and role models visible to allow ourselves to aspire to reach higher. Visibility is still one of the most powerful tools in changing society.”

How mapping the world’s buildings makes a difference

In Lamwo district, in northern Uganda, providing access to electricity is a challenge. In a country where only about 24% of the population has a power supply to their home from the national grid, the rate in Lamwo is even lower. This is partly due to lack of information: The government doesn’t have precise data about where settlements are located, what types of buildings there are, and what the buildings’ electricity needs might be. And canvassing the area isn’t practical, because the roads require four-wheel-drive vehicles and are impassable in the rain.

Ernest Mwebaze leads Sunbird AI, a Ugandan nonprofit that uses data technology for social good. They’re assessing areas in Lamwo district to support planning at the Ministry of Energy in Uganda. “There are large areas to plan for,” explains Ernest. “Even when you’re there on the ground, it’s difficult to get an overall sense of where all the buildings are and what is the size of each settlement. Currently people have to walk long distances just to charge their phones.”

To help with their analysis, Ernest’s team have been using Google’s Open Buildings. An open-access dataset project based on satellite imagery pinpointing the locations and geometry of buildings across Africa, Open Buildings allows the team to study the electrification needs, and potential solutions, at a level of detail that was previously impossible.

  • A satellite view of Accra, Ghana, with building footprints from Open Buildings v1 and v2.

    Improved detail in urban areas

  • A satellite view of Tiris Zemmour, Mauritania, with building footprints from Open Buildings v1 and v2.

    Model improvements have helped to reduce false detections — for example, in this desert area, rectangular rocks were being misidentified as buildings.

  • A satellite view of Kitui, Kenya, with building footprints from Open Buildings v1 and v2.

    Using more recent satellite imagery helps us to extend the coverage in rural areas.

Our research center in Ghana led the development of the Open Buildings project to support policy planning for the areas in the world with the biggest information gaps. We created it by applying artificial intelligence methods to satellite imagery to identify the locations and outlines of buildings.

Since we released the data, we’ve heard from many organizations — including UN agencies, nonprofits and academics — who have been using it:

  • The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has been using Open Buildings for survey sampling. It’s common to do household surveys in regions where people have been displaced, in order to know what people need. But UNHCR needs to first have an assessment of where the households actually are, which is where the Open Buildings project has been useful.
  • UN Habitat is using Open Buildings to study urbanization across the African continent. Having detail on the way that cities are laid out enables them to make recommendations on urban planning.
  • The International Energy Agency is using Open Buildings to estimate energy needs. With data about individual buildings, they can assess the needs of communities at a new level of precision and know how much energy is needed for cooking, lighting and for operating machinery. This will help with planning sustainable energy policy.

We’re excited to make this information available in more countries and to assist more organizations in their essential work. As Ernest says, “By providing decision makers with better data, they can make better decisions. Geographical data is particularly important for providing an unbiased source of information for planning basic services, and we need more of it.”

How carbon-free energy around the clock can work

In recent years, many companies have been reducing their carbon emissions footprint by purchasing clean electricity. Traditionally, companies purchase renewable energy to match their annual electricity needs, known as “100% renewable energy matching.”

But this 100% annual matching doesn’t mean complete decarbonization, due to the variability of renewable power supply. There are times when not much wind or solar is available and companies have to use fossil-fuel generated electricity. In German, of course, there’s a word for these periods of low wind and sun: Dunkelflauten.

This is a problem, as this graph shows.

Graph showing that surplus energy doesn't fill gap between demand and supply all the time.

Graph showing that surplus energy in some periods does not fill the gap between demand and supply in other periods

During this two-week period, a company matched its total demand (grey) with wind generation (blue). However, even though there’s a surplus of clean energy in the first week, during the second week, demand outstrips available wind power.

Unfortunately, batteries cannot completely fill the gap, as they can only shift surplus power supply by a couple of hours - not days or weeks. More innovation is necessary – and it’s beginning to happen.

Hourly, carbon-free energy targets help reduce emissions

A new approach, called 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE), first introduced by Google, has emerged to address this challenge. Google and some other companies already match their electricity consumption with renewable energy on an annual basis, but more work is needed to fully eliminate their emissions and operate on clean energy around the clock.

In a new research study, published today by my research group at the Technical University of Berlin, we look at the impact of different clean electricity strategies for select countries in Europe. We find that moving from annual matching to hourly CFE targets would reduce significantly more carbon emissions - across the entire electricity system. A new group of stakeholders has come together under the 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact to advance this approach.

According to our simulations for the year 2025, if a business buys energy from the grid in Ireland, its electricity is 61% carbon-free on an hourly basis. If it matches its consumption with 100% renewable energy on an annual basis it is 85% carbon-free on an hourly basis. This reduces emissions relative to the reference case of purchasing no renewables at all. But to reduce emissions further, or eliminate them, the business needs a higher hourly CFE target.

Graph showing how, in Ireland, a CFE score above 85% reduces a consumer’s emissions more than matching renewable generation on an annual basis (100% RES)

In Ireland, meeting an hourly CFE score above 85% reduces a consumer’s emissions more than matching renewable generation on an annual basis (100% RES).

And they also help decarbonise electricity system as a whole

Hourly CFE targets also benefit the electricity system as a whole. By pursuing hourly matching, companies can reduce overall electricity system emissions faster. If for example in Ireland, 25% of corporate and industry electricity demand achieved 100% 24/7 carbon-free energy in 2025, it would reduce Irish emissions by 0.6 million tons of carbon dioxide per year compared to annual matching, equivalent to 15% of Ireland’s power sector emissions.

The good news: it’s less expensive than you’d think

But how can companies meet these targets, and what does it cost? Our analysis shows that getting to 90-95% CFE doesn’t cost significantly more than annual matching. But the final 5%, because of those long winter Dunkelflauten, triples the cost if it is achieved using only wind, solar, and battery storage.

Fortunately, there are other technologies at hand: long-duration storage, such as chemical storage in the form of hydrogen, can help to store electricity for days or weeks. Carbon capture and storage, advanced geothermal, or advanced nuclear technologies, can contribute. If these technologies are available, the cost of 100% CFE is reduced.

More good news: it spurs technology innovation

Pursuing 24/7 CFE will create early markets for less mature technologies that are needed in the medium-term. Just as solar PV costs plummeted thanks to early markets and improvements in manufacturing, 24/7 CFE could accelerate the development of long-duration energy storage and clean dispatchable power. The whole power system will need these technologies as it decarbonises, so early development will benefit everyone.

To read more, please see our study.

Build smarter and ship faster with the latest updates across our ecosystem

Posted by Jeanine Banks, VP/GM, Developer X and DevRel

At last week’s Made by Google launch event, we announced several new hardware products including the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, Google Pixel Watch, and Google Pixel Tablet—a suite of innovative products that we’re excited about. While sure to delight users, it got me thinking—what will these changes mean for developers?

It’s hard to build experiences that let users enjoy the best that their devices have to offer. Undoubtedly this brings a level of complexity for developers who will need to build and test against multiple OS updates and new features. That’s the thing about development—the environment is constantly evolving. We want to cut through the complexity and make it simpler to choose the technology you use, whether for an app on one device or across large and small screens.

Earlier this year at Google I/O, we shared our focus on making developer tools work better together, and providing more guidance and best practices to optimize your end-to-end workflow. For example, we announced the new App Quality Insights window in Android Studio that shows crash data from Firebase Crashlytics directly inside the IDE to make it easier to discover, investigate, and fix offending lines of code.

But our work doesn’t stop once I/O ends. We work all year round to offer increasingly flexible, open and integrated solutions so you can work smarter, ship faster, and confidently set up your business for the future.

That’s why we’re excited to connect with you again—both in person and virtually—to share more recent product updates. Over the next three months, we have over 200 events in more than 50 countries reaching thousands of developers through product summits, community events, industry conferences, and more. Here are a few:

DevFest | Now - December
Local Google Developer Groups (GDG) organize these technology conferences according to the needs and interests of the region's developer community, and in the local language. Tune in virtually or join in person.

Chrome | Multiple dates
This year the Chrome team will meet you at your favorite regional developer conferences and events, in addition to online forums across time zones. Join us on the journey to build a better web. Check out the calendar.

Google Cloud Next | October 11-13
Learn how to transform with Google Cloud to build apps faster and make smarter business decisions.

Firebase Summit | October 18
Join this hybrid event online or in person in New York City to hear how Firebase can help you accelerate app development, run your app with confidence, and scale your business.

Android Dev Summit | Beginning October 24
Learn from the source about building excellent apps across devices, coming to you online and around the world. We’ll be sharing the sessions live on YouTube in three tracks spread across three weeks, including Modern Android Development on Oct 24, form factors on Nov 9, and platform on Nov 14.

BazelCon | November 16-17
Hosted by Bazel and Google Open Source, BazelCon connects you with the team, maintainers, contributors, users, and friends to learn how Bazel automates software builds and tests on Android and iOS.

Women in ML Symposium | Coming in December
Join open source communities, seek out leadership opportunities, share knowledge, and speak freely about your career development with other women and gendered minorities in a safe space. Catch up on last year’s event.

Flutter Event | Coming in December/January
Hear exciting product updates on Google’s open source framework for building beautiful, natively compiled, multi-platform applications from a single codebase. In the meantime, re-live last year’s event.


We look forward to the chance to meet with you to share technical deep dives, give you hands-on learning opportunities, and hear your feedback directly. After you have heard what we’re up to, make sure to access our comprehensive documentation, training materials, and best practices to help speed up your development and quickly guide you towards success.

Mark your calendars and register now to catch the latest updates.

Fast Forward: The magic of Wi-Fi explained

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Once upon a time, you could only access the internet by plugging into it; and back in the day you even had to dial in before you could log on! Wi-Fi technology has only been around since 1997. Now it’s hard to imagine a world without Wi-Fi networks around us almost everywhere. But how does it work and more importantly, how can you get the most out of your home Wi-Fi network? We get these questions a lot, but the answers can help no matter where you get internet.


Understanding bandwidth


Bandwidth is key to making the most of your internet, and it refers to the amount of content your internet can handle. Let’s use actual traffic to make this a little clearer—A three lane highway can only accommodate so many cars and trucks before it backs up and creates a traffic jam. And every car is different. There are zippy cars, slow cars, and semi trucks. Each takes up a different amount of room and drives at a different speed — but the three lane highway can’t just magically turn into a four lane highway to accommodate an overload of cars and trucks when things get too slow-moving on the three lane highway. 


Similarly, you can think of your Wi-Fi network as a highway. It has a set amount of lanes (bandwidth [measured in megabits or gigabits of upload or download speeds, depending on your plan]) and can only support a certain amount of traffic (your devices) without slowing down just like that highway traffic jam. Certain devices, like a 4K streaming TV, take up a lot of room (bandwidth) on  Wi-Fi, because it requires a lot of power to be able to download 4K video on demand (which is why you might want to hardwire devices like this). Other devices, like your Wi-Fi enabled lightbulb, don’t take up as much space on your internet connection because they don’t need much bandwidth.

 


It’s important to remember that your 1 Gig plan, 2 Gig plan, or whatever plan you have from a provider doesn’t mean each device gets the full bandwidth of your Wi-Fi connection — they all share it. So if you’ve got 41 devices running in your household like I do, you’re probably using a lot of internet. But there are things you can do to get more out of your Wi-Fi network: 


  1. Get multiple access points.


If you only have a solitary router trying to create a Wi-Fi network to cover a spacious home or apartment (or one with thick or brick walls), you’re likely to experience more interruptions over your Wi-Fi network. Setting up a mesh network that fits the size and needs of your home can speed up the internet across your home. Which is why our 1 Gig and 2 Gig plans include mesh networking capability.


For me, I wanted to be able to catch up on the news while getting ready in the morning…which meant ensuring my home network covered my bathroom seamlessly. Figure out where you need (or just want) your internet (you can get information about how your routers and extenders are working by calling our service agents or, if you are 2 Gig customer, through the Google Fiber app), and adjust your Wi-Fi network to make room for the things that are important to you. This is also something our installers help our customers do when they are doing installations.


  1. Frequencies matter


There are two different radio frequencies used by Wi-Fi. One is the 2.4 Ghz spectrum and the other is the 5.0 Ghz spectrum. Both frequencies have been in use for many years and offer a few pros and cons to keep in mind. 


The 2.4 Ghz band (the older of the two) tends to propagate to more areas, meaning it offers wider coverage than the 5.0 Ghz band. That said, while it may go further, it does so with considerably less bandwidth than 5.0 Ghz. This means 2.4 Ghz is great for devices that don’t require a lot of bandwidth, like a smart light, but less than ideal for bandwidth-intense devices like a smart TV. In fact, a modern smart TV will likely see some buffering if connected to a 2.4 Ghz network. 


5.0 Ghz is really just the inverse of 2.4 Ghz. It offers less range, but packs enough bandwidth to power most of today’s Wi-Fi devices like your laptop or smartphone. 


The good news is that most routers and devices will try to auto-connect to the appropriate frequency. That said, if you’re on the outer edges of your Wi-Fi coverage area, you may notice your device can only connect to the slower 2.4 Ghz frequency as you’re out of range of the 5.0 Ghz. 


While 2.4 Ghz and 5.0 Ghz are the primary spectrums for Wi-Fi today, a third is beginning to hit the market as well. The latest Wi-Fi 6E enables use of the 6.0 Ghz frequency. That is unlocking even faster Wi-Fi speeds on compatible devices. 

  

  1. Take a load off


Hardwiring is always going to give you faster internet speeds (back to that 4K TV) — it’ll also take demanding devices off your Wi-Fi and in turn, will make room for your other devices. So hardwire your gaming console or ancient printer if you can. It’ll give your partner more room to have that seamless video call, and they’ll thank you for that.


Posted by Nick Saporito, Head of Commercial Strategy

Yasmine Evjen shares her passion for Android development and how to get involved at DevFest

Posted by Komal Sandhu - Global Program Manager, Google Developer Groups

“I would love to see more stepping out of our comfort zones, playing with technology, and bringing back that joy of what got us into Android development in the first place.”

Learn Android tools and tips from Android Community Lead, Yasmine Evjen, and hear from her first-hand on how to get involved.

Continue reading →

Meeting global mental health needs, with technology’s help

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that nearly 1 billion people are living with a mental disorder, worldwide. During the global pandemic, the world saw a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression. There was even a corresponding spike in searches on Google for mental health resources — which is a trend that continues to climb each year. To help people connect with timely, life-saving information and resources and to empower them to take action on their mental health needs, teams of Googlers are working — inside and outside of the company — to make sure everyone has access to mental health support.

Connecting people to resources on Search and YouTube

Before we can connect people to timely information and resources, we need to understand their intent when they turn to Search. Earlier this year, we shared our goal to automatically and more accurately detect personal crisis searches on Google Search, with the help of AI. This week, we’re rolling out this capability across the globe. This change enables us to better understand if someone is in crisis, then present them with reliable, actionable information. Over the coming months, we’ll work with partners to identify national suicide hotlines and make these resources accessible in dozens more languages.

Beyond the immediate needs related to mental health crises, people want information along their mental health journey no matter what it looks like — including content that can help them connect with others with similar experiences. To better support these needs, YouTube recently launched its Personal Stories feature, which surfaces content from creators who share personal experiences and stories about health topics, including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, bipolar disease, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This feature is currently available in the U.S., with plans to expand it to more regions and to cover more health issues.

Scaling an LGBTQ+ helpline to support teens around the world

Mental health challenges are particularly prevalent in the LGBTQ+ youth community, with 45% of LGBTQ+ youth reporting that they have seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. Since 2019, Google.org has given $2.7 million to support the work of The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ+ young people. With the help of a technical team of Google.org Fellows, The Trevor Project built an AI system that could identify and prioritize high-risk contacts while simultaneously reaching more LGBTQ+ young people in crisis.

Today, we’re granting $2 million to The Trevor Project to help them to scale their digital crisis services to more countries, starting with Mexico. With this funding, they will continue to build and optimize a platform to help them more quickly scale their life-affirming services globally. In addition, we’ll provide volunteer support from Google’s AI experts and $500,000 in donated Search advertising to help connect young people to these valuable resources. The Trevor Project hopes that this project will help them reach more than 40 million LGBTQ+ young people worldwide who seriously consider suicide each year.

Using AI-powered tools to provide mental health support for the veteran community

That’s not the only way The Trevor Project has tapped AI to help support their mission. Last year, with the help of Google.org Fellows, they built a Crisis Contact Simulator that has helped them train thousands of counselors. Thanks to this tool, they can increase the capacity of their highly trained crisis counselors while decreasing the human effort required for training.

Now we’re supporting ReflexAI, an organization focused on building AI-powered public safety and crisis intervention tools, to develop a similar crisis simulation technology for the veteran community. The Department of Veteran Affairs reports that more than 6,000 veterans die by suicide each year. ReflexAI will receive a team of Google.org Fellows working full-time pro bono to help the organization build a training and simulation tool for veterans so they can better support each other and encourage their peers to seek additional support when needed.

Perhaps the most potent element of all, in an effective crisis service system, is relationships. To be human. To be compassionate. We know from experience that immediate access to help, hope and healing saves lives. SAMHSA
(Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Admin.)

When it comes to mental health, the most important path forward is connection. AI and other technologies can provide timely, life-saving resources, but the goal of all these projects is to connect people to people.

Note: Source for SAMSA quote

Ask a Techspert: How does Google Assistant understand your questions?

Talking to Google Assistant is a real “wow, we’re officially in the future” moment for me, often to the point that it makes me wonder: How do voice-activated virtual assistants work? Specifically, how do they understand what someone is asking, then provide a correct, useful and even delightful response? For instance, a few weeks ago, I was playing around with Assistant before getting to my actual question, which was, naturally, food-related. I said, “Hey Google, what’s your favorite food?” Assistant’s answer was swift: “I’m always hungry for knowledge,” it said. As the cherry on top, the written version that appeared as Assistant spoke had a fork and knife emoji at the end of the sentence.

Assistant can respond to so many different types of queries. Whether you’re curious about the biggest mammal in the world or if your favorite ice cream shop is open, chances are Assistant can answer that for you. And the team that works on Assistant is constantly thinking about how to make its responses better, faster and more helpful than ever. To learn more, I spoke with Distinguished Scientist Françoise Beaufays, an engineer and researcher on Google’s speech team, for a primer on how Assistant understands voice queries and then delivers satisfying (and often charming) answers.

Françoise, what exactly do you do at Google?

I lead the speech recognition team at Google. My job is to build speech recognition systems for all the products at Google that are powered by voice. The work my team does allows Assistant to hear its users, try to understand what its users want and then take action. It also lets us write captions on YouTube videos and in Meet as people speak and allows users to dictate text messages to their friends and family. Speech recognition technology is behind all of those experiences.

Why is it so key for speech recognition to work as well as possible with Assistant?

Assistant is based on understanding what someone said and then taking action based on that understanding. It's so critical that the interaction is very smooth. You only decide to do something by voice that you could do with your fingers if it provides a benefit. If you speak to a machine, and you're not confident it can understand you quickly, the delight disappears.

So how does the machine understand what you're asking? How did it learn to recognize spoken words in the first place?

Everything in speech recognition is machine learning. Machine learning is a type of technology where an algorithm is used to help a “model” learn from data. The way we build a speech recognition system is not by writing rules like: If someone is speaking and makes a sound “k” that lasts 10 to 30 milliseconds and then a sound “a” that lasts 50 to 80 milliseconds, maybe the person is about to say “cat.” Machine learning is more intelligent than that. So, instead, we would present a bunch of audio snippets to the model and tell the model, here, someone said, “This cat is happy.” Here, someone said, “That dog is tired.” Progressively, the model will learn the difference. And it will also understand variations of the original snippets, like “This cat is tired” or “This dog is not happy,” no matter who says it.

The models we use nowadays in Assistant to do this are deep neural networks.

What’s a deep neural network?

It’s a kind of model inspired by how the human brain works. Your brain uses neurons to share information and cause the rest of your body to act. In artificial neural networks, the “neurons” are what we call computational units, or bits of code that communicate with each other. These computational units are grouped into layers. These layers can stack on top of each other to create more complex possibilities for understanding and action. You end up with these “neural networks” that can get big and involved — hence, deep neural networks.

For Assistant, a deep neural network can receive an input, like the audio of someone speaking, and process that information across a stack of layers to turn it into text. This is what we call “speech recognition.” Then, the text is processed by another stack of layers to parse it into pieces of information that help the Assistant understand what you need and help you by displaying a result or taking an action on your behalf. This is what we call “natural language processing.”

Got it. Let’s say I ask Assistant something pretty straightforward, like, “Hey Google, where's the closest dog park?” — how would Assistant understand what I'm saying and respond to my query?

The first step is for Assistant to process that “Hey Google” and realize, “Ah, it looks like this person is now speaking to me and wants something from me.”

Assistant picks up the rest of the audio, processes the question and gets text out of it. As it does that, it tries to understand what your sentence is about. What type of intention do you have?

To determine this, Assistant will parse the text of your question with another neural network that tries to identify the semantics, i.e. the meaning, of your question.

In this case, it will figure out that it's a question it needs to search for — it's not you asking to turn on your lights or anything like that. And since this is a location-based question, if your settings allow it, Assistant can send the geographic data of your device to Google Maps to return the results of which dog park is near you.

Then Assistant will sort its possible answers based on things like how sure it is that it understood you correctly and how relevant its various potential answers are. It will decide on the best answer, then provide it in the appropriate format for your device. It might be just a speaker, in which case it can give you spoken information. If you have a display in front of you, it could show you a map with walking directions.

To make it a little more complicated: If I were to ask something a bit more ambiguous, like, “Hey Google, what is the most popular dog?” — how would it know if I meant dog breed, dog name or the most popular famous dog?

In the first example, Assistant has to understand that you’re looking for a location ("where is") and what you’re looking for ("a dog park"), so it makes sense to use Maps to help. In this, Assistant would recognize it's a more open-ended question and call upon Search instead. What this really comes down to is identifying the best interpretation. One thing that is helpful is that Assistant can rank how satisfied previous users were with similar responses to similar questions — that can help it decide how certain it is of its interpretation. Ultimately, that question would go to Search, and the results would be proposed to you with whatever formatting is best for your device.

It’s also worth noting that there’s a group within the Assistant team that works on developing its personality, including by writing answers to common get-to-know-you questions like the one you posed about Assistant’s favorite food.

One other thing I’ve been wondering about is multi-language queries. If someone asks a question that has bits and bobs of different languages, how does Assistant understand them?

This is definitely more complicated. Roughly half of the world speaks more than one language. I’m a good example of this. I’m Belgian, and my husband is Italian. At home with my family, I speak Italian. But if I'm with just my kids, I may speak to them in French. At work, I speak English. I don't mind speaking English to my Assistant, even when I'm home. But I wouldn't speak to my husband in English because our language is Italian. Those are the kinds of conventions established in multilingual families.

The simplest way of tackling a case where the person speaks two languages is for Assistant to listen to a little bit of what they say and try to recognize which language they’re speaking. Assistant can do this using different models, each dedicated to understanding one specific language. Another way to do it is to train a model that can understand many languages at the same time. That’s the technology we're developing. In many cases, people switch from one language to the other within the same sentence. Having a single model that understands what those languages are is a great solution to that — it can pick up whatever comes to it.

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