When users first try virtual assistants (like Siri, Google Now, Cortana, M or Alexa), they’re struck by the idea that they’re talking to a computer, rather than a person.

That much sounds obvious. In reality, however, the responses from virtual assistants are far more human than most people assume. In fact, every response is carefully crafted by a person or a team of people.

What you get as a response to your question or request to a virtual assistant isn’t what a real-live person said. It’s what a team of people believe a real-live human being could or should say.

Some replies are constructed from prerecorded words and phrases — the sentences are pieced together by software to answer some arbitrary question — and others are written as full sentences or paragraphs. Let’s take a look behind the scenes and see how this works.

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