Understanding emojis in the context of online experiences is described. In at least some embodiments, text input is received and a vector representation of the text input is computed. Based on the vector representation, one or more emojis that correspond to the vector representation of the text input are ascertained and a response is formulated that includes at least one of the one or more emojis. In other embodiments, input from a client machine is received. The input includes at least one emoji. A computed vector representation of the emoji is used to look for vector representations of words or phrases that are close to the computed vector representation of the emoji. At least one of the words or phrases is selected and at least one task is performed using the selected word(s) or phrase(s).