Like Cortana, a voice assistant is a solution that listens to a user's spoken utterances, analyzes the contents of those utterances for meaning, performs one or more actions in response to the utterance's intent, and then provides a response to the user that often includes a spoken component. It's a "voice-in, voice-out" experience for interacting with a system. voice assistant authors create an on-device application using the DialogServiceConnector in the Speech SDK to communicate with an assistant created using Custom Commands or the Direct Line Speech channel of the Bot Framework. These assistants can use custom keywords, custom speech, and custom voice to provide an experience tailored to your brand or product.