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New Google Assistant Features Bring Kid-Friendly Updates

Parental controls, a kids dictionary and kid-friendly voices are coming.

Corinne Reichert Senior Editor
Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently writes news, analysis and features for CNET across the topics of electric vehicles, broadband networks, mobile devices, big tech, artificial intelligence, home technology and entertainment. In her spare time, she watches soccer games and F1 races, and goes to Disneyland as often as possible.
Expertise News, mobile, broadband, 5G, home tech, streaming services, entertainment, AI, policy, business, politics Credentials
  • I've been covering technology and mobile for 12 years, first as a telecommunications reporter and assistant editor at ZDNet in Australia, then as CNET's West Coast head of breaking news, and now in the Thought Leadership team.
Corinne Reichert
Google Nest Hub with the definition of "telescope" on the screen
Google

Google has announced three new features for its assistant, all focused on children. Google Assistant is adding parental controls, kid-friendly voices and a kids dictionary.

Parental controls will be made available in the coming weeks through Google Home, Family Link and Google Assistant apps on Android and iOS. You'll be able to limit which music and video providers your children can access, block news or podcasts, schedule downtime, restrict phone calls, and even "choose what kind of answers they get from Assistant," according to a Google blog post.

You can also specify controls for each child by setting up individual voice match, and face match if you've got a Nest Hub Max.

There are also four new kid-friendly voices launching on Google Assistant with "a diverse range of accents." They speak more slowly and expressively than the usual assistant voices. 

Lastly, Kids Dictionary will give simple and age-appropriate answers when children ask Google Assistant to define words. It'll tap into the voice-matching capability mentioned previously, pulling the simplified definitions when it recognizes a child is asking it. 

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