Google debuts Allo, its AI-based chat app

Google unveiled a new messaging app called Allo that is supercharged with machine learning and has its digital assistant service (Chirp) built right in. Available for both iOS and Android, the app gives users the ability not just to chat with one another using animated graphics and enlarging/shrinking text, but also allows them to call in Google to share media, makes purchases, plan events, and brainstorm what to say to each other.

For Google enthusiasts, you may think Allo is intended to replace the company’s other messaging app, Hangouts, but you’re wrong. The app is explicitly meant to be a fresh start for Google’s new communication division (which also runs Hangouts and Project Fi).

“It's really liberating to start from scratch sometimes,” said Erik Kay, director of engineering, communications products.

To use the app, you first sign up with your phone number and can connect your Google account to it. You’ll be able to view the standard chat features: sent/received indicators, emojis, and a set of custom stickers. When you wish to send a photo, it’ll show up full-bleed on the screen and even lets you doodle on it if you want to. The app also lets you drag your finger up or down on the button to enlarge or shrink the text before sending it, a feature Google refers to as “WhisperShout.”

In addition, there is also a Smart Reply feature, which suggests responses to you for conversations, so you don’t need to type anything. Over time, the app will learn how you reply to things and make more relevant suggestions. Smart Reply also works with photos in Google Photos, suggesting replies to images. For example, it might reply “yum” to a food picture.

Of course, if that were all to Allo, then it wouldn’t really have a reason to exist. Its most notable feature is the Google assistant feature built right in. Users can set up conversation with @google and ask it an array of questions. The AI machine will respond with something similar to what you would find if you typed it into a Google search box, or it has the power to engage in actual conversation with you. It will suggest further searches and give you ways to do things that Google can do.

And the chatbot is smarter than most: it has the power of Google’s Knowledge Graph, which understands thousands of “entities” and how they relate to one another. Asking @google a complicated question that can’t be solved on the web is no problem for the AI-machine. Users can even ask the chatbot to “guess the movie based on a string of emoji” and it will.

With a clean, simple, and quick to understand interface, Allo also features an “incognito mode” that offers end-to-end encryption. The use of this technology may make it difficult for law enforcement to recover messages during investigations even with a warrant, which makes this feature the latest to join in the standoff with the FBI over encryption.

Source: TechCrunch and The Verge