Google has announced that its smart speakers and displays are getting parental controls for Google Assistant and they're rolling out within weeks.

Google Assistant is more than something people interact with on their phones and Google says that it knows many kids use the digital assistant on shared devices. To help parents protect their kids where needed, Google says that it's rolling out a number of new features that it believes will make it safer for them to use Assistant.

The new Google Assistant parental controls will roll out over the next few weeks and will be available via the Google Home, Family Link, and Google Assistant apps on both Android and iPhone. The company says that parents will be able to modify settings for media like music and podcasts, as well as enable or disable various Assistant features. There'll also be an option to configure downtime for kids, too.

Google has also announced Kids Dictionary, a new addition to Assistant that will allow it to respond to kids in a different way to how it might do an adult. It'll use voice matching to know who it's talking to, and then return age-appropriate answers when asked to define words.

Finally, Google is also rolling out new kid-friendly voices that can be easily activated by simply saying "Hey Google, change your voice". Google says the new voices are designed to reflect different accents and voices based on the ways different communities speak. Kids and parents then simply choose the voice they like.