How Google Assistant delivers news and podcasts

Trustworthy and timely information empowers people to better understand the world around them and make educated decisions. Google aims to make it easier to stay informed by using technology to organize what journalists are reporting about current issues and events. We don’t have an editorial point of view. Instead, Google Assistant is designed to connect you with a broad array of information and perspectives to help you develop your own point of view and make informed decisions.

When you ask Google Assistant for news or podcasts about a specific topic, such as "Hey Google, show me news about sports" or “Hey Google, play a comedy podcast,” Assistant ranks responses based on the words in your request, the freshness of the content, and if it is from nearby. Assistant may also rank some responses higher based on the device you are using. For example, if you ask for news on a smart display, video news stories may be ranked higher to take advantage of that device’s capabilities. If you ask for news or podcasts from a specific provider, such as an audio streaming service that offers news podcasts, Assistant lets the service provider decide what news or podcast to play.

If you ask Google Assistant for news or podcasts in general, such as asking, "Hey Google, what's the news?" or “Hey Google, play a podcast,” how Assistant responds depends on your settings. With news, Assistant responds with a set of top items from a set of news providers selected in your Assistant news settings under News briefings by default. In some countries, default news providers may be set based on Google's partnerships in order to bring you relevant, authoritative news in that country. You can always change the default news providers in Assistant settings. When you ask for podcasts, if more than one provider is available, Assistant asks you to select your preferred podcast service, such as Google Podcasts, so you can access your favorite podcasts on the provider you prefer. Assistant remembers this choice for future requests, and you can change this selection in your Assistant settings for podcasts.

Google works with news and podcast providers around the world to bring you audio, video and web news content through Google Assistant. News and podcast providers can reach a wider audience at no cost to them by sharing their content with Assistant through the following channels:

All news providers must comply with our news content policies. In general, Google does not pay news providers for their content. However, in some cases Google licenses content from providers in order to bring you relevant, authoritative news content. We don't rank licensed news items higher than other similar news content. For more information about how Google brings news content to you through Google Assistant and other Google services, see How News Works.