BACKGROUND

An intelligent user (e.g., personal) assistant (IUA), such as Microsoft's Cortana® (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.), is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual user of a computing device. These tasks or services may be based on user input, location awareness, and the ability to access information from a variety of online sources such as weather or traffic conditions, news, stock prices, user schedules, retail prices, etc.

An IUA may be operated in any of a number of environments, such as desktop computers, mobile devices, tablets, and a variety of operating systems thereof (e.g., Windows® by Microsoft).

Generally, an IUA may be able to set reminders, recognize natural voice (e.g., audio) without keyboard input, and answer questions using information from a search engine (e.g., current weather and traffic conditions, sports scores, biographies, and so on). An IUA may be able to store personal information of a user, such as interests, location data, reminders, and contacts in social networks. The IUA may draw upon and add to such information to learn the user's specific patterns and behaviors (e.g., machine learning). Generally, users may view and specify what information is collected to allow some control over privacy.

Some IUAs include an active listening function, enabling the IUAs to be invoked with a voice phrase (e.g., the voice phrase “Hey Cortana” may activate Microsoft's Cortana® IUA.

SUMMARY

This disclosure describes techniques and architectures for a speech-based intelligent user assistant (IUA) having a flexible operating system that is based, at least in part, on the context of interaction of a user of a computing system with the computing system. Such a flexible operating system may allow for non-obtrusive communication of the IUA with the user. Thus, for example, a user may communicate with the IUA without interrupting their other activities on the computer, such as playing a video game.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. The term “techniques,” for instance, may refer to system(s), method(s), computer-readable instructions, module(s), algorithms, hardware logic (e.g., Field-programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Application-specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Application-specific Standard Products (ASSPs), System-on-a-chip systems (SOCs), Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLDs)), quantum devices, such as quantum computers or quantum annealers, and/or other technique(s) as permitted by the context above and throughout the document.

