Google I/O 2021 Ushers in Native Android Integration for Assistant App Actions
Google reveals major updates for Assistant developers at I/O 2021, including a new Android framework API called Capabilities for App Actions. This integration allows developers to use shortcuts.xml to connect user voice commands directly to specific in-app tasks.
Google highlights major developer updates for Google Assistant following the virtual Google I/O 2021 event, focusing heavily on App Actions, Conversational Actions, and Smart Home Actions. A significant milestone is the integration of App Actions directly into the Android framework, moving the feature closer to the core Android platform and away from its previous standalone implementation.
The newly introduced Capabilities API serves as the primary tool for this framework integration, allowing developers to declare specific user actions that launch an app and jump directly to designated tasks. Developers currently define these capabilities using a beta shortcuts.xml configuration resource along with Built-In Intents (BIIs) to handle natural language understanding, which completely replaces the older actions.xml method if both are present.
To improve user discovery, Google introduces voice shortcuts that allow users to find and add shortcuts simply by saying "Hey Google, shortcuts." Developers can leverage the beta Google Shortcuts Integration library to push an unlimited number of dynamic shortcuts to Google, ensuring their app functions remain highly visible and easily accessible to Assistant users.