The United States Patent Office recently published Google’s continuation on a patent for a search system that detects when there is no satisfactory answer for a query and waits to automatically deliver the answer when it becomes available.
Search And AI Assistant
The patent, published in February 2026, is a continuation of an older patent, with the main changes being to apply this patent within the context of an AI assistant. The invention describes solving the problem of answering a question when no actual answer is available at the time a user makes the query. What it does is waits until there’s a satisfactory answer, at which point it circles back to the user with the answer, without them having to ask again.
The patent is titled, Autonomously providing search results post-facto, including in assistant context. Although the patent mentions quality thresholds, those thresholds are defined in the sense of whether the answer meets the user’s needs.
The patent describes six scenarios that would trigger the invention:
- When no search results meet defined quality or authoritative-answer criteria.
- When results exist but fail to provide a definitive or authoritative answer that satisfies those criteria.
- When no results meet quality criteria because the information is not yet available.
- When a query seeks a specific answer and no result satisfies the required criteria.
- When a resource later satisfies the defined criteria after previously lacking required information.
- When a previously available resource is refined or updated so that it now meets the criteria.
Useful And Complete Answers
Google’s patent says that the invention is a solution for times when there is no useful or complete answers because the information does not yet exist or is not good enough, forcing users to keep searching repeatedly.
The system checks if results meet:
- A quality standard
- Authoritativeness standard
- Or a completeness standard.
If the current answers don’t meet those standards, the system will store the query and monitor for new or updated information. Once it becomes available it will send the results to the user later without them searching again.
Follow-Up Questions Are Not Necessary
What is novel about the invention is that it enables follow-up delivery of results after the original query without requiring a new follow-up questions. It also surfaces search results proactively in notifications or assistant conversations.
At a later time, when new or updated information becomes available that satisfies the criteria, the system proactively delivers that information to the user. This delivery can occur through notifications, within an unrelated interaction, or during a later conversation with an automated assistant.
The system may also optionally notify the user that no good results are currently available and ask if they want to be informed when better results appear.
What this system does is it transforms search from a one-time, user-initiated action into a persistent, ongoing process where the system continues working in the background and updates the user when meaningful information becomes available.
Cross-Device Continuity
An interesting feature of this invention is that it can reach out to the user across multiple devices.
Here is where it’s outlined:
[0012] In some implementations, the query is received on an additional computing device that is in addition to the computing device for which the content is provided for presentation to the user.”
This capabiilty is highlighed again in section [0067]:
“For example, the content may be provided for presentation to the user via the same computing device the user utilized to submit the query and/or via a separate computing device.”
It can also go cross-device as a visual and/or audible output across devices and in the form of an automated assistant, and can present the information when the user is interacting with the automated assistant in a different context, describing an “ecosystem” of devices.
Lastly, the patent explains that the information can be surfaced when the user is interfacing with the automated assistant in a completely different context:
[0040]”…the content may be provided for presentation to the user via the same computing device the user utilized to submit the query and/or via a separate computing device. The content may be provided for presentation in various forms. For example, the content may be provided as a visual and/or audible push notification on a mobile computing device of the user, and may be surfaced independent of the user again submitting the query and/or another query.
Also, for example, the content may be presented as visual and/or audible output of an automated assistant during a dialog session between the user and the automated assistant, where the dialog session is unrelated to the query and/or another query seeking similar information.”
Takeaways
The patent (Autonomously providing search results post-facto, including in assistant context) is in line with Google’s vision of tasked-based agentic search, where AI assistants help users accomplish things. This patent could be applied to an AI agent that is asked for tickets to an event when the tickets aren’t yet available. Or it could be applied to making restaurant reservations when the reservations when the dates open up. Both of those scenarios are related to task-based agentic search (TBAS)
Here are seven takeaways:
- The system stores data associated with the user about unresolved queries, allowing it to track unanswered information needs over time rather than treating each search as a one-off event.
- It delivers results within future interactions, including unrelated assistant conversations, not just through standalone notifications.
- The notifications can happen across an ecosystem of devices.
- A lack of results is defined by failing to meet quality criteria, which can be the absence of information, the answer not being available yet, or the answer is not available from authoritative sources.
- The system focuses on queries that seek specific answers, rather than general informational searches.
- It supports cross-device continuity, enabling a query on one device to be fulfilled later on another.
- The design reduces repeated searches by eliminating the need for users to check back, then autonomously circling back when the information is available.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/uyabdami
