Google rolls out custom voice actions to make talking to your apps much easier

Google today announced the ability to use custom voice actions with third party applications, allowing you to get things done much easier when using the Google search app. For now, custom voice actions are only compatible with a select number of partners, but the search giant plans to bring this functionality to more applications in the future.

With custom voice actions, you’ll be able to say things like “Ok Google, listen to NPR”, to start playing a new story through the NPR app on your device. Another example given is the ability to say “Ok Google, show attractions near me on TripAdvisor”, to bring up TripAdvisor results without having to launch the app the traditional way.

Custom voice actions are now live in Google search for Android, though you’ll have to wait for more developers to start implementing the code into their apps. While Google has yet to release a full list of applications that support this feature, it’s looking like early partners include NPR, TripAdvisor, TuneIn, Wink, Shazam, and a few others. Google also just posted a big list of “88 things you didn’t know you could ask Google“, which includes some of the new parters who are already using the custom voice actions feature.