ROUTING NATURAL LANGUAGE COMMANDS TO THE APPROPRIATE APPLICATIONS

A device is configured with multiple applications that each respond to various commands. The correct application to receive a natural language command is identified by consideration of how well the command matches functions of the application. A target application to receive the command may additionally be selected by consideration of which application is most likely to receive a command. The likelihood of an application to receive a command may be determined by considering context. The command may be a voice input that is analyzed by speech recognition technology to determine word strings representing possible commands. Thus, the selection of a target application to receive the command may be based on any or all of the word strings from the natural language input, a closeness of fit between the command and an application, and the likelihood an application is the target for the next incoming command.