Google Analytics Gets Natural Language Processing Support With Machine Learning

Google Analytics now has the same natural language processing technology available in other Google apps such as Photos and Search, the Internet giant announced on Tuesday. That means you can now ask questions in plain English, which gets you answers quicker than before.

Depending on the question you ask, you will be presented with a number, rows, or a chart. As an example, the Analytics team suggests a question such as "How many new users did we have from organic search on mobile last week?" which will give you a number. If you ask the trend of session duration, expect the answer in a chart form as the image above.

The feature becomes a part of Analytics Intelligence, which relies on machine learning to make sense of your analytics data. Analytics Intelligence will also help provide automated insights – now available on both Web and the app – alongside smart lists, smart goals, and session quality. Insights will also present specific recommendations to improve metrics, such as reducing load time to decrease bounce rate, and adding a new AdWords keyword to boost conversion rate.

To access the new questions feature and get automated insights, click the Intelligence button to open a side panel on the website, and tap the Intelligence icon in the top-right corner on the Google Analytics app for Android and iOS.

Google says the new features are now rolling out, and will be available in English to all Google Analytics users over the next few weeks.