Systems and processes are disclosed for virtual assistant request recognition using live usage data and data relating to future events. User requests that are received but not recognized can be used to generate candidate request templates. A count can be associated with each candidate request template and can be incremented each time a matching candidate request template is received. When a count reaches a threshold level, the corresponding candidate request template can be used to train a virtual assistant to recognize and respond to similar user requests in the future. In addition, data relating to future events can be mined to extract relevant information that can be used to populate both recognized user request templates and candidate user request templates. Populated user request templates (e.g., whole expected utterances) can then be used to recognize user requests and disambiguate user intent as future events become relevant.